Things Forgotten
by nyacat39
Summary: Six Years. Six years that come as a blur sometimes to Rachel Gardner. Most of her memories from when she was thirteen are hazy and the main things she remembers were waking up in a hospital, and that her parents are dead. She's tried to live a normal life, but with a problem of having memory "black outs" at seemingly random. Is there a way for her to remember what happened?
1. Chapter 1

Hey all, nyacat39 here. So I've actually had this little AU story over on AO3 for a while now and with Fanfiction finally getting an Angels of Death tag well... Thought I'd finally share this story here. I'm gonna post all the chapters I've already got done over the next few days to slowly ease everyone in while I'm working on the newer ones. Hope you all enjoy it here as much as people over on AO3 do!

 _ **DISCLAIMER:**_ I only own the OC's (and my best friend does as well as she helped make them with me) and the story, all the other characters belong to Makoto Sanada.

* * *

 _ **Chapter 1:**_

 _Rain fell from the sky as a bakery was closing down for the night. One of its employees stepped out after finishing her work and pulled a red umbrella up over her head of blonde hair. In her arm was a bag of bread and pastries that were going to be thrown out anyways._

" _See you tomorrow Derek," she called back, just before the door fully closed and before she set off on her way home. Her black boots splashing in the water with each step, getting some onto her black capris and her striped socks, making her much more determined to get home as quick as possible._

 _Not thinking twice about it she turned down a back alleyway and calmly navigated her way through to get to her apartment. She did however stop for a few seconds to pull out her phone and double check the Note's area that told her the navigation through her chosen route._

 _ **I'm glad I didn't forget that today.**_ _The blond thought proudly to herself before her phone beeped at her with a reminder to take her medicine in the next half hour. Rolling her blue eyes at that she powered down her phone and continued on her way._

 _Slowly she began to notice two things. One was the fact that her simple shortcut home seemed to be getting longer than she expected, with a few new turns that she had to take to get back onto the right track… and two was the fact she was beginning to hear an extra set of footsteps that followed her own. She did stop for a little bit to make sure it wasn't just her imagination, but found that those extra footsteps seemed to continue… and get progressively closer._

 _ **Just keep going Rachel… Don't stop. If whoever this is speeds up, run.**_ _She thought to herself as she started walking once again, holding back on her urge to glance back to see who was following her. After what felt like a few minutes Rachel heard the footsteps increase in pace, prompting her to begin running._

 _ **Come on why isn't this alley ending? It shouldn't take this long!**_ _Was the thought that crossed Rachel's mind as she picked up the pace. She started running at the sound of whoever was behind her picking up their own pace. Barely thinking about it she took a sudden turn in hopes there would be another quick one so she could lose whoever was following her…. Only to find herself at a dead end._

 _Only able to take one step back, Rachel soon felt something large and sharp at her neck and heard an insane sounding laugh. Despite the situation, the blond only had widened eyes at how quickly this all happened._

" _ **Turn around Ray,"**_ _a distorted male's voice laughed. Slowly doing as she was told, Rachel couldn't help but ponder for a moment how this person knew her old nickname…_

Only for her eyes to open up at the sound of an alarm going off on a side table next to her. Turning her head to the alarm she saw the glow of her phone and the reminder it had that it was time for her medication.

Sitting up and stretching slowly to help pop her muscles and wake them up, Rachel took to looking around her from the comfort of the queen sized bed she had been asleep in not to long ago. It was her room alright, from the cluttered sewing table of projects and finished stuffed toys in the far left corner of her room, to the large bookshelf near the dresser on the right. The shelves high above the work table were full of completed little dolls she made, some with faces, others without and the side table near her bed was still cluttered with her medication bottles, her phone, a digital clock and a few post it note reminders.

Her door sat a good distance away from her bed but closer to where her bookshelf was located, and was closed. There was only the open door of the closet in her room with some sewing material poking out.

 _Was that a dream? Or… did that happen?_ Rachel thought to herself after looking around her room with her lifeless blue eyes. She raised one of her hands to her neck and felt along the area where she had felt the blade.

 _It felt familiar…_

"Hey Rachel you up yet?" A female's voice questioned from the outside of her door. Rachel had remained quiet for a moment, processing the voice in her head before answering.

"Yeah… I am."

"Hey great cuz I'm making pancakes for breakfast! Grab your meds and meet me at the table in five alright."

"...Alright Katie."

Rachel soon pulled herself out of her bed, glancing down at her legs she stared at the red pajama bottoms, unsure when she got them or if they were really hers. Shaking her head free of her confused thoughts she reached over to her side table and shook each of the three bottles before finding the one that had her pills. Twisting the top open she stared down the bottle and found only four pills within the orange bottle.

 _I'll need to get more tomorrow… right?_ The blond thought before checking some of the post it notes and then nodding to herself that she was right as one said she had to take one in the morning and one before bed.

Pulling herself up to her feet and making sure one pill was within her hand, Rachel soon made way out of her room. Once out she found herself in the short hallway between her room, Katie's room as well as the living/dining room of their apartment.

"Took your time huh Ray?" a brunette haired girl grinned, her White shirt with black cat silhouette designs, as well as a portion of her faded blue jeans were covered by a white apron that had splashes of flour on it. In both her hands were two plates with at least three chocolate chip pancakes on each of them.

"You said five minutes… it's been four."

"Smart ass," Katie laughed as she set both plates down onto the living room's table. Sitting down onto the small two person sofa the brunette motioned over to the blond to come take a seat by her. Rachel did so and saw the glasses of milk near the plates. She turned a questioning gaze over to her roommate who sighed.

"We're out of the usual OJ, so I just poured us milk."

"... No chocolate syrup to add in?"

"No, but we do have Strawberry. I just didn't want to assume because you know what happens when you assume," Katie shrugged, while Rachel blinked in confusion.

"... Strawberry?" The brunette paused mid-bite before sighing at the question.

"Questions later, eat first alright?" Rachel was quiet for a little while before she finally nodded in an "okay" fashion. She then took her medication with the milk before eating her own pancake breakfast.

…

After breakfast and cleaning up their dishes, Rachel couldn't help but remember her… maybe dream and was about to bring it up to her friend, only to get interrupted by the grinning brunette.

"So Rachel, remember what today is?" At this question Rachel gave her friend a confused look before something seemed to come to her.

"Movie Marathon day?"

"No that's Friday night. It's Saturday," Katie said, and seeing the confused look on her friend's face she got a slightly guilty look on her face. "Well… We finished our first finals earlier this week, and the others did as well. Soo, we're all meeting up for old times sake!"

"Oh…" Rachel trailed off, before something came to mind. "You think Barry actually got accepted into a college yet?"

"With his need to fight everything and anything added with his record? The school itself would have to be out of its mind," Katie sighed, while Rachel had a little smile make its way onto her lips.

"Yeah, they would have kicked him out on the first week."

"Nick's more likely bored out of his mind at his college. There's no Barry to make it interesting after all."

"What was he going for again?"

"Lawyer, he did always say he might as well be if Berserker Barry's gonna be a little shit."

"Oh yeah…" the blond trailed off, causing the brunette to notice and turn her attention to her friend.

"You alright?" Katie questioned, a concerned look on her face at how silent her friend became.

"... Did… It rain last night when I was at work?"

"... Rachel you don't work Fridays… And it hasn't rained since last month. Why?"

"... I had a dream… it felt so real I thought… it had to have happened last night," Rachel responded, trying to figure out exactly how to word her dream to Katie. The mentioned brunette leaned in slightly, showing her interest in what her friend had to say.

….

After telling Katie what she could of the dream, Katie had a contemplative look on her face before finally telling her friend what she thought.

"Well… maybe it came from the fact last night's movie marathon was Horror. That would explain the long alleyway and the blade at your neck. Hell I'm actually surprised you could actually sleep after that… I know I couldn't especially after that Doll one," the brunette shuddered, always having a fear for both porcelain and ventriloquist dolls. Rachel blinked and tried to remember last night… only for it all to come up as a blank.

 _That does sound plausible though… My mind must have just mixed it all together is all._ Nodding finally to herself, Rachel offered up a small smile to her friend though like always it never seemed to reach her eyes.

" _ **... You really suck at smiling after all."**_ These words came to her almost every time she did smile. It felt like a distant memory and the voice wasn't very clear in her head, but every time it did come to her mind she felt her eyes almost water. Katie knew this well enough and had tried many times to comfort her… but no matter what it always seemed like her friend would be stuck having a constant mix of joy and sadness at random times.

"... Hey so you questioned about the strawberry syrup earlier right?" Katie quickly brought up, knowing by now that she had to distract her friend with a different conversation whenever she seemed to get upset.

"... Yeah I did…"

And with that the two had a more… one sided conversation for the next ten minutes. After words Rachel had went back into her room and got dressed. Today she choose to wear a simple white top with a grey sweater vest that had little black diamond designs, black dress pants with a boot cut and a simple pair of white socks. Checking through her closet, and moving a few of her sewing supplies out of the way she found her little black hand bag she had had since she was 13… or at least for what she could remember from that time.

It definitely had that old worn out look to it, with a few stitches here and there from the few times it did break. Katie and a college friend she made named Emily would both tell her constantly that she should think about getting a new one instead of just fixing it and modifying the strap so it would continue to rest at her side… but Rachel never listened.

This was one of the two items that she had left from her past… she didn't want to get rid of either of them, even though the memories behind both of them seemed lost. Just having them with her gave her a sense of calm. Though it was much harder to do with the second item.

 _ **Acquired Handbag.**_

….

After both girls had prepared, Katie now supporting a blue hoodie with a light blue wave like symbol on it over her kitty cat shirt. Rachel would always look on in confusion at it but never really questioned it, thinking of it more as something that wasn't really important. Though the parts she would question were when Katie would stop sometimes on a windy day in the middle of their park walks and playfully wave her arms around in the direction the wind would be blowing.

The only answer she ever got was that she was "Doing the Windy thing" and would then just walk off without her brunette friend to reevaluate why she was her best friend.

"Let's hurry!" Katie grinned as they stepped outside their apartment door, both supporting their own pair of shoes of course. Rachel gave a small smiled "okay" in response to her enthusiastic friend as they hurried down the halls and down the stairs as neither one wanted to deal with elevator traffic.

Rachel's pace was more controlled as she hurried down the steps at least one at a time… Katie on the other hand seemed to be going a little too fast to the point she was skipping a few steps here and there as well as running into a wall at least once.

"... Maybe you should slow down."

"Hell no!"

"But you might-" Katie's foot landed on one of the steps wrong just as Rachel was trying to warn her friend, causing the brunette to fall forward. Thankfully she had caught herself just before her face could hit the landing.

"HOLY SHIT THAT WAS CLOSE!"

 _I tried to warn you…_ Rachel thought to herself with a sigh as she stopped next to her friend to help her up.

"You alright?"

"Aside from my racing heart, the hurt ankle and hands? Peachy." Katie sighed while brushing off her pant legs, wincing a little from the pressure put onto her ankle as she stood up.

"Tried to warn you…" Rachel sighed. Katie seemed to grow a large grin on her face after thinking things through for a moment before speaking again.

"Yeah, you really did," the brunette snickered while Rachel just blinked in confusion as to what was so funny.

….

Inside a cozy restaurant two friends sat waiting. One was a young man with bored looking brown eyes, slightly messy black hair, giving it a fluffy look, he had on a rather average looking sweater with the words "I'm surrounded by idiots" printed on the front. He also had a pair of dark blue jeans and brown boots.

The other was another young man, with bright mischievous blue eyes, bright pink hair, freckles running across his face, an expensive looking jacket over a T-shirt that had a band's logo on it, a pair of sweatpants and finally a pair of white converse.

"I still can't believe you actually dyed your hair pink Barry…" the black haired boy commented with a deadpanned look on his face.

"Hey when you lose a bet, you lose a bet."

"The bet was made three years ago!"

"And only now did it become official that I lost Nick."

"Katie probably forgot about it anyways…"

"H-Holy shit! You actually did it!" the voice of Katie laughed as she and Rachel entered the cafe where the two boys were. At her reaction Barry just gave Nick a look while gesturing over to the brunette in a whole "see?" motion.

"... I liked your normal hair better," Rachel commented, remembering Barry's normal red hair. Comparing it to the bright pink it was now seemed to not sit well with the blond.

"Well it'll be back eventually," Barry winked causing Rachel to shake her head with a small smile.

The quartet all sat around at a table and placed their orders before starting to catch up with one another. Nick told them about how tricky his last final was and how he had passed it with a B. Barry had joked about how that was most likely his first time EVER having a B on anything. Nick however retorted.

"Funny if it was your test it would be YOUR first time having a B on anything as well."

Katie couldn't help but cover her mouth while loudly going "OH" behind her hand. Rachel did something similar but pretended to cough into her own hand as a way to cover up the small smile the crossed her face… though the hint of the usual small hint sadness that accompanied her smiles, giving away what she was actually doing.

Desperate to change the subject Barry asked the girls what their finals were like.

"Eh, long, dull and GOD was it stressful for the week," Katie groaned, leaning back in her chair with her head back.

"... I don't remember really…. But I think it was hard," Rachel responded with a slight narrowing of her eyes as she tried to remember what happened nearly two days ago. Her three friends shrugged it off though, being used to this by now. Something seemed to come to Rachel's mind though as she decided to speak up again.

"Barry… have you figured out what you're going to do yet?"

Silence was her only response as both Nick and Katie leaned in to their pink haired friend.

"Come on Barry, it's been a whole year now. Do you even have something in mind yet?" Katie asked, a playful smirk on her face as Barry fidgeted in his seat.

"The girls are both going into fashion and I'm going into Law… surely you've at least got a small idea where you're going."

"Uh… Professional Video Game Streaming?" Barry's friends all stared at him with deadpanned looks.

"... Seriously?" Nick asked quirking a brow.

"... Not unless you get a good following…" Rachel commented with a sigh.

"Trust me, as someone who Streams every Tuesday and does it for fun… it's actually pretty damn hard to get a good following unless you do it for years," Katie informed as she brushed a strand of her hair from her eyes.

The conversation went on like that for about four minutes before Rachel had to excuse herself to the restroom, leaving her three friends alone. As soon as she was gone all three got grim expressions on their faces.

"Hey Barry… how many people have died back home?" Katie asked her arms crossed as if trying to keep herself warm… or rather keep them from shaking from the morbid question she had just asked.

"Since last month… According to my cousin, nine people," the pink haired young man responded, pretty much staring into his cup of water as he answered.

"They still haven't caught this monster…" Nick picked up, seeing Katie pretty much look like she was going to break down crying soon. The black haired boy placed a comforting hand on the brunette's arm and Barry soon scooted his chair over to her side. The pink haired male wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gently began patting as a few tears began at the corners of her eyes.

"God when will this end?" She questioned quietly.

"... Apparently it was supposed to end when you two were thirteen." Both friends glanced over to their Law Student friend, looking for an explanation. "Originally the guy who followed almost the same pattern of indiscriminate killings had been caught six years ago and was executed for his crimes. He was an entire state away from ours and had the same MO of leaving the bodies out near the back alleys, and using a sharp object to slash unconnected people to death…. What's plaguing our state now is more likely than not a copycat killer."

"... Nick… How do you know that?" Barry asked with a confused yet slightly concerned look on his face.

"... There was a report we had to do on previous cases and we got to pick our topic. I chose to look up the Back Alley Murderer." Nick shrugged like it was no big deal, his friend's expressions seemed to say otherwise. Though it was a little after that when their food finally made it to their table, serving as a nice little distraction from the grim topic.

"Sorry I took awhile…" Rachel said as she was just arriving, and noticing the grim looks on her friends faces along with the food at the table. "... What's wrong?"

"Oh… just… discussing the funeral for my Aunt coming up," Katie responded, pulling up a pained smile and the two boys to agree to the lie. Rachel blinked at this and slowly sat down in her seat looking between her best friend and her food.

"Did… we ever talk about it?"

"Two days ago actually… You were there when I got the call after class…" Rachel looked down, almost ashamed that she had forgotten.

"Let's get off this grim topic for now and dig in!" Barry exclaimed, with a big grin on his face as he tried to get everyone's spirits back up… surprisingly it worked.

…

After Lunch the quartet were about to leave when someone called out to them outside of the restaurant. It was a young man with shaggy brown hair, a pair of glasses over his brown eyes, a black zipped up hoodie with a fluffy looking inside, grey sweatpants and a brown messenger bag at his side.

"Yo Eric!" Barry grinned while waving wildly at the oncoming brunette… Katie however seemed to lose whatever joy she had before and send a glare to her fellow brown haired companion when he finally stopped near them.

"Just got out of work…" Eric wheezed, clearly having run the whole way here.

"... could have stayed longer for all I care…" Katie mumbled causing Rachel to glance over to her with a confused look before her attention was snapped by Eric saying her name.

"Ah, sorry," Eric quickly said at noticing her surprised look. "I just… remembered to grab your birthday gift. Sorry I missed it last month."

He held out a nicely wrapped small box. It fit right in the palm of his hand and Nick looked at it suspiciously.

"... Wasn't her birthday two months ago?" Nick pointed out, causing Eric to fidget a bit… but didn't stop Rachel from gently taking the wrapped gift into her own hands.

"Nah Nick, we were all busy then so we had the party last month remember?" Barry laughed, seeming to be much more understanding on the situation then Nick… Katie seemed to also pick it up but frowned as opposed to the grin on the pink haired boy's face.

Rachel seemed to tune out her friends as the three boys all began catching up with each other and Katie seemed to gravitate towards her side as the blonde opened up the gift. Under the wrapping was a small black box, the kind that usually held jewelry in it which Rachel felt a little uncomfortable with as she lifted the lid. Inside was a rather simple looking chain necklace with a not so simple pendant on display with a shiny blue gem centered in the metal work.

 _ **Acquired Necklace.**_

Feeling uncomfortable with the gift, but not wanting to sound rude, Rachel closed the box and placed it into her handbag before addressing Eric.

"... Thanks."

At hearing this Eric seemed to just brighten up considerably but almost deflated a little when he noticed she wasn't wearing the gift. Katie was quick to pick that up and almost instantly got in her fellow brunette's face.

"She just got it. Don't think that every _girl_ is going to wear something they just got, the minute that they get it," Katie growled, causing Rachel to quickly get in front of her to separate the two brunettes, Barry to place a hand on Katie's shoulder and another on her arm and finally Nick to do the same on Katie's other arm. The one who the words had been directed at had backed up with widened eyes at the hostility.

"Katie calm down!" Nick shouted, keeping his grip on his friend but making sure to not hurt her too much.

"Yeah, and he's normally telling me that!" Barry exclaimed, doing the same as Nick… though he was probably holding on a little tighter than Nick was.

Despite this Katie still seemed rather angry… but she at least took a deep breath and calmed herself down after glancing at her three friends. She relaxed enough that the two boys let go and she backed up a little to give them confirmation that she wouldn't do anything.

"... Maybe I shouldn't hang out with you guys today…" Eric sighed. With his head lowered and shoulders slumped he began to walk away until Rachel stopped him by gently grabbing his wrist.

"... We… hardly ever have everyone together. Please stay for the movie at least," Rachel pleaded, she hardly ever got time to hang out with all her friends from her Middle School days. Sure Eric didn't come around till her Junior year in High School, but he was from her old Middle School before her transfer, and sure they weren't friends in Middle School but he was still one of her friends she had for a very long time.

Eric looked Rachel in the eyes for a while before looking to the others, Barry was giving a huge grin, having known the pink haired boy for a while he knew this one was more of a "Sorry about that" grin then anything else. Nick was rubbing the back of his neck, a nervous habit he had, and Katie was avoiding looking at him.

"... Alright, yeah. Let's go," Eric smiled, the small group then began walking with both brunettes as far away from each other as possible. Katie kept shooting glares over to Eric, who seemed to be doing his best to ignore them and the other three friends couldn't help but think just what happened between the two to make Katie this bitter.

 _What happened after graduation that made them so distant?_ Rachel thought to herself while taking a single glance to her best friend.

…

The rattling of chains echoed around him. He had gotten used to it over the years, though it still annoyed him… reminding him about how he remained trapped. It was because of that feeling, it pissed him off. It pissed him off so much… but he had tried everything to break them by this point.

With his back leaned up against a wall, he simply stood there… waiting. For what really? Anything, there wasn't much else he could do at this point. He was tense but relaxed, tense enough that he would spring up whenever needed… but relaxed enough to nearly fall asleep.

"... So which movie are we planning on seeing?"

At hearing a voice his head snapped up and an almost feral grin started to form at the corners of his lips. He heard three other voices, the first one and two others being male and the last one being an annoyed female. His grin nearly faded at the amount of people and he nearly started to ignore them… until a second female voice rang out right.

"... Honestly I don't care…"

His head snapped into the direction, seeing the group of five passing by without a care… but his eyes remained on one single person in the group. The girl with blond hair… and the dead blue eyes.

"Come on Rachel, you've gotta have some opinion on a movie."

Everything seemed to slow down for him in just that moment. He didn't register if the one who had spoken was one of the guys or was the only other girl. Everything else seemed to be muted as he stared at the blond… and the dead eyed small smile that crossed her face.

An honest to god smile crossed his own face at seeing it… though naturally for him it came off a little more… dark than a normal person's smile should have been.

" **Found you Ray."**

….

Rachel stopped and glanced down the alleyway they were passing. The feeling of being watched was strong and a sense that someone had just said her name were both ever present as she stared into the slightly shadowed alley.

 **But no one was to be seen.**

"You alright?" Nick asked, noticing that she stopped sooner than the others did.

"... Yeah." Was her only reply as she took one final glance down the alley before following her friends. The feeling of someone watching her remained strong the entire time she walked away.

….

The small group was now just leaving the theater, each with a disappointed expression on their faces.

"That was not worth the seven bucks…" Eric sighed.

"I'm surprised Barry didn't try finding the manager and punching them to give us a refund like last time," Nick stated, causing the mentioned pink haired boy to just sigh.

"The movie killed any fighting mood I might have had… plus I don't really want to be banned from another theater…"

"That would actually explain the zombie look you had half way through," Katie muttered, feeling slightly ashamed that she had even thought about seeing that stupid movie. The effects weren't even that good.

"... I'm still trying to figure out if the lead was cheating all the way to the end or in an open polygamy…" Rachel brought up. She was never really one to watch romance genre movies but this one honestly just left her more puzzled than anything.

They continued to complain about the movie, this being one of the first times in a long, long while that all of them got along so well… until Eric screamed.

"Er-" Rachel had started until Eric cut her off, freaking out some more.

"Oh God tell me that's not a-"

"Dude chill! What's-" Barry exclaimed while grabbing onto Eric's shoulder to try and calm him down… only to follow the brunettes line of sight and freeze on the spot.

Nick picking up on this rather quickly turned his head to peer down the alleyway. The sun was still out giving him a good enough view of what they were seeing. Nick froze but quickly brought his phone out and dialed a number, leaving both girls out of the loop… till they saw it

A body laid on its back in a large pool of its own blood. The person's mouth was open as if they had been screaming in agony, one arm positioned closer to their body and the other dropped off to the side as if that arm and been trying to reach for something. Katie had covered her mouth at the sight of it while Rachel's eyes widened.

Not just because of the dead body… but because she thought she saw a shadowed figure standing over the body… and then vanish after giving an almost demented looking smile in her direction.


	2. Chapter 2

So from this chapter on, I'm gonna give little fun facts at the end of the chapter about somethings from either the chapter itself or even behind the scenes writing facts. Since this is the First one I'm doing this with I'm gonna give two fun facts at the end.

* * *

 _ **Chapter 2:**_

Rachel was frozen on the spot, her friend's voices seemed distant and muffled as she stared at the body. The only thing she could hear was the pounding of her heart in her ears. She could barely registered anything that she was doing either. She was vaguely aware of walking towards the body.

"Rachel!" the sound of her name and someone shaking her snapped her out of it and the blonde was finally aware of what she was doing. She saw her fingers pressed against the body's neck as if checking for a pulse, her other hand seemed to have been inches away from her own handbag… What had she been doing?

"What the hell Rachel?" Glancing over and finally registering the voice in her head, Rachel had noticed that it was Katie who had been the one to run over to her side. She then looked back down at her hand and almost instantly the words just seemed to come out.

"... I was... making sure if they were really dead or not… just in case an ambulance was needed."

"Why?!" Katie exclaimed, though Rachel thought that she had answered that already… she actually wasn't even sure herself why that seemed to be her first reaction… it was also then she started noticing Eric's panicked ramblings in the background and Nick trying to tell the police exactly where they were… While Barry seemed to be getting closer to giving into his urge to punch Eric just to get him to shut up.

"..."

"Fucking hell. You see a dead body and your first reaction is to go up and get your fingerprints on it…" Katie sighed as she rubbed a hand down the side of her face. Rachel remained silent, staring down at the body before finally noticing something.

"... Why doesn't the shirt have any holes?"

"What?"

"Their shirt…. Shouldn't it… have holes in it?"

Katie looked on in concern for her friend before noticing the same thing. The person had clearly bled to death and there were a few darker areas on the shirt showing much more blood coating the area… but from the fact that the shirt didn't even have a single hole to show a bullet wound or even a knife wound was… off.

"Guys the police are on their way now… Eric calm down already!" Nick called to them, only to quickly snap at his panicking friend.

"WHY?! There's a dead body! The sun is still out! No police are even here! For all we know the killer could still be here! We might as well-" Eric shouted, having a major panic attack until Barry grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him just a little.

"Calm down for Pete's sake!"

It was one of these times the pink haired boy's friends were glad that he had a strict policy of "No punching or Hurting friends" otherwise Eric would have a broken nose… or even a lost tooth or two. Though at the moment… Rachel was more lost in her own mind with questions… yet no answers. Despite Katie being right by her side… it almost felt like she wasn't really there. The blond felt like she should be feeling something like the others.

Fear, shock, disbelief… but really she didn't feel anything.

 _Is… that why I feel alone at the moment? No… that's not it…_ the blond haired girl thought to herself, staring at the bloody body. Her eyes going darker as if the last bit of life in them was snuffed out as they moved away from the body and into the shadows of the alley.

 _ **Someone is watching me.**_

….

The rest of the wait was spent with unease as the small group was finally able to leave off the hook seeing as they only found the body and nothing else… though Rachel did have to tell them about checking for the pulse so they could rule out her fingerprints.

There was a tension that was strong though as none of them had seen a murdered body before… though Rachel couldn't help but feel like that wasn't true. That feeling was practically killing her with confusion.

"... Alright someone's gotta say it," Barry finally spoke up while throwing his hands in the air and wanting to get rid of the tension. "That was the most horrifying thing that's happened since the New Year's incident two years ago."

"... Y-Yeah you know what… it kinda was," Katie stammered, her right arm across her body and rubbing her left. A silence followed soon after once again enveloping the group in that uncomfortable embrace. The obvious attempt to try and get people to talk and move on from the incident… didn't really work.

"... Hey Nick…" Rachel spoke up, catching more than just the black haired boy's attention.

"What?"

"... Um…. Are you… still going to go for your law degree?" Rachel questioned. Before Nick could answer Eric butted in, his face still pale.

"C-Can we please avoid anything involving this topic?" Eric stammered, fear clear on his. Nick himself was quiet before he decided to speak up.

"Gotta finish what I started. Besides… I think I should head home anyways," Nick sighed as they stopped at an intersection crosswalk. The Red light telling them to not walk was clear and no one made a move to push the button after Nick spoke.

"You don't have to leave Nick!" Barry exclaimed.

"Barry's right… Why...?" Katie asked clearly wanting to say more but the words not coming to her.

"I-I think I'm going t-to head home as well…" Eric stammered, his arms wrapped around himself with a shudder. Barry whipped his head over to the brunette male, but Katie seemed to keep her focus on Nick. The boy turned his brown eyes to meet with her hazel.

"... I'm going to be going to meet with Reverend Black… you know get somethings off my mind," Nick explained. Barry shuddered at the mention of the priest, while the other three just simply nodded not knowing to much about the Reverend who their friend talked about sometimes.

"I still don't get why you visit him…" Barry muttered, looking kinda uncomfortable as he spoke while Nick turned to Barry with a deadpanned expression on his face.

"For the last time Barry, his church isn't haunted. You just had a prank pulled on you," Nick stated while Barry shook his head.

"You didn't see it Nick!"

"Um… haunted?" Rachel asked, confused just as much as both Eric and Katie as the two boys conversed.

"You never said anything about your church being haunted before Nick," Katie pointed out, with a raised brow while Nick groaned.

"It's not. Ghosts don't exist after all."

"Do so! Guy looked like he must have been killed!" Barry argued, Eric shivered again at this and promptly said a quick good bye… wanting to be as far away from the topic as possible as he left. Guy never could handle horror movies let alone horror stories… especially ones involving ghosts.

However the two girls were curious about it… after all Barry never did tell the story and it seemed to them that this would be a great way to get their minds off the murder victim.

….

Nick had actually parted ways with his friends a little while ago… he heard the story before and had even been there when the pink haired boy freaked out over it, he didn't need to hear the bull shit again. He had called his sister to pick him up nearly twenty minutes ago and she hasn't arrived at his location yet. Then again that's to be expected he supposed… it was a nearly fifty minute drive if there wasn't much traffic.

Sighing to himself he pulled out his phone and decided to play around on there, while walking around the nearest store to wait. He didn't really pay much attention on what store it was, just that it was the closest to where his sister would be picking him up. About ten minutes had passed before he finally did… taking quick note he was in a bookstore of all places.

 _What are the odds?_ Nick mused to himself as he browsed the store shelves to see if he could find something to keep himself busy. Once he did find a book he found a place to sit close to a window and began flipping through the pages. Even as he did so his mind kept wandering back to what he had seen.

Nothing he was doing was getting the image of the murdered victim out of his head. Nick knew he had to try and get over it… be the responsible one and show the others that it's not something to worry over. Sure he was a year younger than the others… but even then he's always been the rational one.

How long have his hands been shaking now? Nick didn't know, but now it was really messing up his reading to the point he just closed the book and looked out the window.

The building across the street didn't seem as busy as it probably should have been… but that was just from an outside view after all. Unless one could get a better look inside no one would know for sure. From Nick's view point, he could only see so much and the setting sun's gaze didn't help that much either.

It was a red sunset after all… and the image of the blood pool came back to the forefront of his mind. Nick closed his eyes tight at the thought.

 _Don't think about it… stop thinking about it…_

 _ **Ring Ring!**_

Jumping at the sound of his phone Nick quickly answered.

"H-Hello?" Nick cursed himself internally from stammering.

" _Where the hell are you?"_ It was his sister… and she didn't sound happy.

"The… The bookstore on the corner of 7th and Sycamore…"

" _Jesus Christ…. Hurry up I don't want to pay for parking."_

Nick didn't say anything as he sighed. Hanging up he went to put the book he grabbed back and then left the store. Ignoring how some people had stared at his shirt for a bit as he hurried to his sister's waiting red "death wagon" he and Barry called back when she first got it since it looked rather worn down.

"Aren't you normally Mr. Punctual?" His sister ask. Her normally long wavy black hair was tied up into a braided ponytail, showing off her pierced ears, painted lips and annoyed brown eyes. Nick was quick to notice she was dressed rather nice like she was heading off to a party or a fancy restaurant. Not that she could completely afford going to a fancy restaurant or anything.

"Aren't you to fancy for this junkheap?" he quipped as he slid into the passenger's seat. His sister just flipped him off.

"I was just getting ready for a date, you jerk."

 _That would explain her attitude._ Nick thought as he buckled up and his sister began driving.

"Did Barry do something stupid again to make you ask for a ride home?"

"Not this time Joan… I need a ride to Reverend Black's. There's something I need to talk to him about."

Joan groaned but kept her eyes on the road.

"More like play chess all day… Couldn't you have asked mom or dad to drive you? Or Hell even Barry?"

"They were busy. Plus you know Barry's a wimp when it comes to the Reverend."

"Of course…" She moved one hand from the wheel and turned the radio on, knowing this was going to be a long drive.

….

The trio had now made it back to the girl's apartment and were getting settled in. A silence had come over the small group all on the way there. Katie had sat on the sofa with Barry joining her and Rachel went to grab her second pill for the day and some water.

"... So what happened?" Barry asked, the silence making him uncomfortable again.

"... What?" Katie asked, quirking a brow at her pink haired friend.

"Between you and Eric… You guys were on much better terms before graduation."

"... It's nothing…"

"Bullshit."

"Seriously Barry… it's nothing. I thought we were going to talk about ghosts not this…"

"I'm not going to tell until Rachel's ready… What happened?"

"Just drop it Barry," Katie muttered as she avoided Barry's gaze. Rachel came walking back in at that moment.

"... You don't have to tell if you don't want… Just… Know we're here," Rachel said as she took a seat on a chair for the small dining room table they had. Katie glanced up at the blond for a moment before giving off a grin.

"Hey, don't worry alright? It's nothing!" Still holding onto her smile, Katie turned to Barry. "What are we waiting for? It's storytime!"

Both Rachel and Barry didn't seem convinced but Barry sighed and gave in. Katie has always been stubborn after all.

"Alright… It was four years ago, I was bored and I wanted to hang out with Nick. He said he was going to his church to visit with the Reverend. I remember asking him why if he didn't actually believe in God. He just said that the old man didn't treat him like he was just some kid… Pretty sure that wasn't exactly how he said it but, probably pretty damn close. Anyways moving on, I followed him to this gothic looking church, and DAMN does it look like a place out of a horror movie," Barry laughed before shuddering. The two girls glanced at each other for a moment before Barry continued his story.

"So we went in and I'm pretty sure I was making a few jokes here and there about vampires or something when some of the people there, other priests I think, said hey and told us the Reverend was in the back. Well more like told Nick that and I just followed. Pretty sure I almost kicked the door open to the room because DAMN that would have been awesome… but Nick stopped me ya know."

"Pretty sure you don't want to get kicked out of a Church anyways," Katie snickered, knowing full well that's what would have happened following the door kicking. Rachel simply sighed at that.

"I think Nick said the same thing actually! Moving along, I was actually surprised that the old man was in a wheelchair! Don't see many priests like that after all… guy also had a few almost healed scars if I remember correctly. I almost wanted to fight him but quickly realized how much of a dick move that would have been, so I punched myself instead. Not my best idea cuz I'm pretty sure the guy thinks I'm crazy now."

"You? Crazy? I would have never guessed," Katie fake gasped with Rachel trying to hold back a light giggle. Barry pulled off a large grin in response.

"I know right? Totally the sanest guy in the world right here! Eighth wonder of the world and all!" Barry laughed while Rachel had a pondering look.

"I don't know… Nick might be more sane than you." The hint of a smile is what really made Barry laugh.

"Alright Yeah he probably is… Where was I again?"

"Punching yourself in the face," the blond provided earning her a thank you from her pink haired friend.

"So yeah, pretty sure he thinks I'm crazy now. So a little later Nick and the guy sit around this table… and set up a chess set. I got bored really quick and decided to explore the church. I found this really big Library and decided to see if it really had every Christian book known to man there or not. I found a Syfy series on the tenth book I pulled out. I wanted to know how many other books there were that weren't speaking about God so I got to work…. I accidently knocked over a vase in my search and heard footsteps coming my way. I panicked and grabbed the closest book and opened it at random."

"Good job Barry," Katie clapped once before noticing the uncomfortable look Barry had and stopped as she was halfway to her second clap. The brunette glanced over to the blond, who had a worried look as she leaned in a little more.

"I had heard... A man's voice. 'Ah, excuse me. I heard something break in here... Did you break something?' he asked me… He sounded polite but I shrugged it off and kept pretending to read. 'Nope, just reading.' I heard the guy laugh a little… it was kinda creepy. 'An upsidedown dictionary?' God was I embarrassed at that. I put the book down… only to actually see the guy. The guy looked like some kinda doctor covered in blood… he had… he had slashes on his clothes… but his eyes… God those eyes freaked me out! W-When he saw my eyes… h-he had this creepy ass smile before vanishing. I had never run from anything as fast as I did then."

Barry had pulled his knees up to his chest by this point. Neither girl had ever seen Barry this shaken up before, nor the spark of fear that clouded his blue eyes. The closest they had ever seen that type of fear was earlier that day… and even then it wasn't as much as he had now. Rachel got up and moved to the other side of Barry. Both she and Katie placed a comforting hand on each of Barry's shoulders and felt him trembling.

"... I told Nick about it but… he didn't believe me. I… I had nightmares for weeks… each one featured the bloody doctor with that creepy smile… I did try going back to the church on my own once but... I looked through one of the windows… and I swear I saw _him_ again. I never went back… and no force in the world will get me to even go back to the STREET there."

Barry felt his own heart pounding in his chest just talking about this. He swore the girls could hear it as well with how loud it sounded.

 _I guess… that would explain his freakouts at ghost movies. But… why can't I shake this uneasy feeling that… something seemed familiar?_ Rachel thought to herself, just as Katie pulled Barry into a full on hug. The blond felt a headache beginning as she tried to think about what felt so familiar…

 _He mentioned the eyes… something about the eyes that truly terrified him… eyes… bloody doctor…!_ Rachel's eyes widened as a sudden sharp pain shot through her head. Green and Red, a twisted smile, eyes… so many eyes.

" _ **Rachel… your peepers are truly the most beautiful."**_

" _ **Ah how I long to live by those peepers forever!"**_

" _ **Rachel… How about I take YOUR peepers!"**_

" _-chel…?"_

" _ **They're waiting for you… in hell!"**_

" _Rachel?"_

" _ **Oh I was just catching him up to speed… he knows everything now!"**_

"RACHEL!"

Katie and Barry both quickly got up and over to Rachel as she fell forward, her eyes fogged and unseeing as she fell. Barry being the closest was able to hoist her up and see the unseeing look in her eyes.

"..." she seemed to mumble something quietly before her eyes closed and she went completely limp, shocking both her friends.

"W-Was that one of her blackouts?" Barry questioned, his already pounding heart not slowing down thanks to his worry. He had never really seen one of Rachel's infamous "blackouts" but he knew both Katie and Nick had seen enough of them to know. However Katie shook her head, her own eyes wide.

"I-It was similar… b-but she's never passed out like that before!"

The two were to preoccupied with their panic neither of them completely thought about the words she mumbled… even though only Barry heard them due to his close proximity, his mind wasn't cognitive enough to think much on the name she had muttered.

 **Doctor Danny.**

….

Nick stepped out of the car, giving a quick thanks to his sister before turning to the large gothic church. His family visited the church itself every Sunday since he was a baby, though now that he and his sister were older they didn't have to be dragged to the sermons every time anymore. However Nick still went, not for the sermons, but to talk to the Reverend of the building.

Reverend Black had always been a kind of mystery to the church itself. The black haired boy remembered a time a little more than six years ago when the wheelchair bound priest was able to walk around. He had a slightly more intimidating aura to him that prevented the boy from ever wanting to get close to the man. Not to mention he would disappear for a few weeks at a time back then with little information on when he would be back.

After the man's accident though… it was almost like he was a different person. He wasn't as intimidating now, but he still didn't seem to get to close to others until the day the other priests had had enough of Nick asking so many questions about God. The injured man had wheeled over to him and listened to his questions… and answered them in a very surprising fashion.

"...I'd like to believe God is as flawed as any human." was the main line that had surprised Nick, and how he seemed to be open to the different interpretations of God that existed. Nick actually found that he enjoyed talking with the old man… an old man who didn't completely treat him like a kid and actually listened to him.

After about two or three weeks, the Reverend had brought him to a back room that had a bunch of board games the church had for kids. He did ask him if he knew how to play chess… to which Nick responded with a negative. The rest was kind of set in stone as every time he visited they would do a round or two of chess and talk. Sometimes Nick would even ask for advice and he would usually get it… mostly in riddles which Nick didn't mind at all. Kept him thinking and "Using that big brain of his" as Barry would put it.

Taking a slow breath Nick went right into the church and wasn't really surprised to see a few of the people who normally worked there, leaving for the day. The only one who ever really stayed was Reverend Black. More likely than not because he actually had a home there… or at least close by. Nick was never really sure which one it was.

Nick knew of a few places where one would normally find the Reverend. One was the main area where the sermons would be held on Sundays. Another was the Library, this was one of the more common places to find the old man usually. His office was an option, though surprisingly he's not seen as often in that area as he is the main two. Finally was the small building out in the back of the church. No one was really allowed in there often except for funerals… and even then only a few people ever go in, the main one being the Reverend himself. No one really knows what the building's truly for though.

Not seeing the man in the main area, Nick wandered down the halls to find the door to the Library. That was one of the other areas he could think of where the Reverend was. The Library itself wasn't that big but it was sizeable enough for at least thirty people to all sit in there and enjoy the silence. There was no sign that the person Nick was looking for was in there, so he sighed and left the room.

It took him a few more minutes to walk to the Reverend's office. It wasn't that spectacular looking, with a simple desk, a bookshelf on the far left corner that had few books and more decorations… but no pictures. The Reverend never had pictures in his office, none of himself, none of his family, nor his friends… not even decorative photos were on the walls. There were a few potted plants here and there, but the biggest thing he had were a few candle stands around the walls. Still no sign of the Reverend though...

"Nicolas… You're here rather late don't you think?" Nick jumped, but let out a sigh from the familiar voice. He moved away from the doorway and let the older man wheel himself in. The wheels surprisingly silent on the wooden floor.

"I… I just needed to talk something out…" Nick started not looking towards the older man at all. He heard the tell tale sigh from the Reverend.

"Yet you come here to a place of a God you believe not. Do you not have peers to converse with?" Nick could feel the older man's gaze on him. This was a common question by this point whenever the black haired boy came by more than twice a week.

"... They… They know what it is already… I… just need someone who doesn't know… to tell," Nick answered, his voice sounding like he was close to breaking. The shivering came back and he wanted to curse himself for letting himself seem so weak.

"... Very well then."

Nick turned his head back to the man. The serious look on his angled face, his slicked back greying hair showing it off well. The scars from the accident he was once in were now faded and barely noticeable from the long purple coat he usually wore as well as his well dressed suit. His clear colored eyes, ones that many had once mistook for as being blind, staring right at him.

"Tell me what is troubling you, Nicolas."

…

Katie paced across the floor to her apartment. Rachel had been taken back into her room leaving both her and Barry alone with their thoughts and worries.

"M-Maybe we should have called an ambulance…" Katie stammered, worry coming to the forefront of her mind. Barry shook his head.

"S-She's going to be fine… she's… she's had blackouts before…" Barry responded, nerves all on end.

"She's never fainted from one Barry!"

"Well maybe… maybe she did something different?"

"What could she have possibly…!" Katie started before realizing something. The brunette stopped her pacing and hurried into Rachel's room. She saw her friend was still passed out, her expression making it seem like she was having some kind of nightmare.

Frowning at this Katie wished she knew some way to get rid of those nightmares… if only to help her friend. However she shook this off and went back to her mission. Strolling over to Rachel's bedside table she grabbed the orange pill bottles and shook each one before finding the one with the pills in it. Looking over it along with one of the empty ones… she noticed there was a slight difference between the current medication and the old one, along with the instructions.

Taking that along with the empty ones to be thrown away Katie cast one last concerned glance over to her friend, before leaving the room.

 _ **Acquired Rachel's Pills.**_

"... She got a new medication last month…" Katie said as she walked back to the confused Barry, holding out the medication she took.

"Okay, so what?"

"She's had more blackouts since then, that's why!"

….

 _The rain was falling once again. Rachel didn't recognize where she was at all. She was clearly on a sidewalk in a city… but why did she have this uneasy feeling in her gut? The people's faces that passed her by seemed blurred or were covered by hoods or umbrellas. Some seemed like they were talking but she couldn't hear it… only the sound of the rain falling._

 _ **What's… going on? Where… where am I?**_ _Rachel thought, wanting to hurry out of there and find a way home… but something seemed to be stopping her. Or rather it was like her body wasn't responding to her._

" _ **Ray hurry up would ya,"**_ _her head turned to the voice to what seemed to be a man in a hoodie… his face was covered in shadows and voice was distorted. He seemed to tower over her as she only made it up to the middle of his chest in height. She felt his hand grab her wrist and he quickly started to drag her._

" _What's wrong?" the words slipped out of her mouth. That wasn't what she wanted to say at all… she wanted to know what the hell was going on… and why she felt so comfortable with this guy. She couldn't see his face but she could tell he was angry… and scared?_

" _ **Are you a fucking idiot? Move your ass and run!"**_

 _Something was very wrong… she felt her own fear rising of its own accord. What's going on? Why are we running?_

 _ **Who is this guy…?**_

 _That's when she heard sirens going off. Her own eyes widened at the sound while the man she was with swore._

" _Take the left quick!" she exclaimed._

" _ **Don't gotta tell me twice!"**_ _They turned quickly down an alleyway and kept running. For some reason she felt like something was going to go wrong… very wrong..._

Rachel opened her eyes, confused on where she was and how she got there… and why she felt like she was in a cold sweat. Looking down at herself she saw that she wasn't dressed for bed… and wasn't under her own covers for that matter. Glancing over to her bedside table she saw the time was 9:56 pm… and her pill bottles were gone.

 _Maybe… I cleaned up?... but… why did I sleep in so late?_ Confused she got up carefully and left her room. Outside the room in the living room there was Katie and Barry.

"... Alright I'll… I'll see what I can do," Barry spoke. Rachel watched as Katie handed something to the pink haired boy, who put the item in his pocket.

"... Um…" She spoke up, causing both her friends to look over in her direction in surprise. Katie was on her immediately as the blonde found herself pulled into a tight hug.

"You okay? Everything alright? Do you remember what today's Date is?" Katie questioned after pulling out of the hug, her hands still on Rachel's shoulders. Lifeless blue eyes stared with confusion into concerned hazel.

"I'm fine… It's Saturday the… **XX** of **XXX** right?" Katie sighed in relief at her answer… only to blink at Rachel's next question.

"... Why is Barry's hair pink?"

* * *

 _ **Fun Fact 1:**_ I actually first got the idea for Things Forgotten as well as some of chapter one planned out almost a year before the game was actually translated into English. I had found the Angels of Death series by complete coincidence after leaving Collage and even though I knew very little at the time, I was hooked and knew I wanted to write a fanfic for it. Needless to say I screamed for joy the minute I saw that it had been released and fully translated.

 ** _Fun Fact 2:_** My Best Friend and I are always using the characters we made for this story as well as Rachel and Zack to plan out many ideas for where Things Forgotten could go... as well as making AU's of this AU. In fact we have three AU's of Things Forgotten that we greatly love and visit sometimes. We call them the "Scooby Doo AU" "Kindergarten AU" and our personal favorite "Zack Lived Bitch AU". Sadly I don't see either one of those three getting written anytime soon... but there is a little hope for the "Zack Lived Bitch" one.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter 3:**_

A week had passed since the incident. It turns out that Rachel forgot everything that happened that day… to which her friends were kind of jealous. Rachel had to go a day without her medication as she had to get a new bottle of her prescription… she didn't remember running out but chalked it up to one of her blackouts. She had nightmares that night. When Katie asked about them, Rachel couldn't remember what they were about… just that she woke up crying.

Though… Rachel couldn't help but feel like Katie and Barry were keeping something from her. It was more obvious with Barry as he had a terrible poker face… and he also would look away and sweat a bit whenever he felt guilty about something. Katie was much harder to read, but when Barry was around he would glance over to the brunette as if asking for help.

On top of that Rachel's also noticed how Katie has been watching the news more often. Well… not recently from what she could tell as her friend left for her Aunt's funeral. That left Rachel alone in the apartment for three days. The first day was… rather quiet, and now that she's on day two the feeling of loneliness is setting in.

She tried sewing things to pass the time. She cleaned and even organized her closet to match the tidiness of her room. She did anything she could think of around the apartment to pass time and keep her occupied but it didn't help her at all. What did help was her phone notification going off.

Checking it she saw that she had a text from Eric… asking if she was free to hang out. Considering her options at the moment… she responded with a yes.

 _ **Great! I'll meet you outside your apartment in half an hour!**_

Rachel couldn't help but question what she was going to do for that half hour.

….

"I'm so glad you could hang out today," Eric smiled, having said that for the second time today in the last hour the duo had been out and about. Rachel simply sent a small nervous smile back, feeling a little uncomfortable with how often the bespectacled boy got to close to her.

"So you've said already…" Eric blushed at her words and avoided eye contact for a moment.

"S-Sorry… it's just… well the two of us haven't hung out together for a while."

"Barry said we hung out last week though…"

"N-No what I meant was… you know just us. You almost always hang out with Katie, and you hang around Nick and Barry more often then I get to… s-so it's nice that we get our own time together!"

"Oh…" Thinking for a moment on what to say next to that statement, the blond seemed to realize something rather quick. "Um… Was there a certain place you had in mind? To hang out… that is."

They had after all been walking the streets of the city for the whole hour they had been together. Normally if something took that long to get to on foot, it would have been better to get a car ride or a taxi to take them to their desired location… but seeing as Rachel doesn't have a car of her own she wouldn't be the one driving.

"Uh… No not… not really." The brunette boy's face was red like a tomato at his confession. This brewed an uncomfortable silence between the two for a moment.

"... Um… are you… hungry?" Rachel asked, feeling awkward now and just wanting to find something to get over it. Eric beamed at the suggestion and grabbed Rachel's hand.

"Yeah! I know this really nice Cafe that has some of the best coffee and sandwiches in the city," he smiled as he started leading her to the mentioned cafe. Not really noticing how she looked down at his hand over her own and for a moment… almost pictured that his hand was bandaged up and had small specks of blood on it.

It disappeared as soon as it had come, leaving a feeling of sadness in Rachel's heart that she couldn't figure out why.

….

The Lunch was going surprisingly well. She and Eric were able to chat and catch up on a lot of things. Rachel felt comfortable once again, even as Eric was telling a story from work.

"... Then my Boss comes in having heard the whole thing and says 'Well, that sounds like someone needs a vacation. To bad you used those days up.' I snorted a little at that but more felt sorry for Mark. It's not his fault he got sick after all."

"Poor Mark…"

"There was an upside though. Boss gave Mark a longer break than usual for the next three days," Eric smiled as he took a sip of his coffee. Rachel gave a small smile back as she picked at the chips that were provided with her sandwich.

"...Okay… I think I have one for you," Rachel said, remembering something that happened while she herself was working. After all since he told her a story she might as well to… it was only fair.

"Go on."

"Alright... It was one of our busiest hours. I was up front at the register when this woman comes up to me asking for a special order on a cake. Thankfully someone else was free to take over for me while I took the order. So… I was writing things down when I asked what kind of design they would like… She said a Striper Fish."

"A what?" Eric laughed, trying to make sure he heard right.

"That's what I said… The woman responded with the same thing adding a 'You know, a fish... with boobs.' I… I didn't know what to say to that, so I called Derek over. He asked us what's wrong… so the woman said what she wanted on the cake and even he did a double take."

"Yeah I would do the same thing. So did you guys make it?"

"Yes… it was weird. It was also supposed to be for the woman's 17 year old son."

"Why would someone do that?"

"I don't know… people are weird."

Eric had a hard time trying to stop himself from laughing. It sounded to weird to even be real, yet here it was coming from someone who didn't make things up. Rachel simply smiled, kinda glad that this was one thing she could remember clearly as it had the same effect on almost all her friends… Nick being the exception as he questioned the sanity of the woman.

….

The duo had finished up and left the cafe, Eric and her about to head off for Rachel's apartment only to find it began to rain outside. Rachel wasn't prepared for the rain like Eric was as he had a coat with a hood… she didn't even know it was going to rain.

"... Here," the glasses wearing boy said as he handed her his coat. Rachel's eyes widened at this and she tried to turn him down but he insisted. Hesitantly she took it and threw the hood up over her head.

"... Thanks…"

The two walked in silence for a few minutes before Eric turned to her with a smile.

"I'm really glad we could hang out."

"...?" Rachel felt a sense of Deja Vu at those words. Eric slipped his hand into her own before continuing.

"I've got something to ask you…" His face was red, probably from a mix of the cold rain and whatever he was going to say. "Do… do you want to give us a chance?"

"... What?"

"You know… try dating?" Silence was his only answer for a while and his joy almost seemed to start fading the longer she remained quiet.

 _He's… still on that huh?_ Though Rachel didn't want to admit it, she remembered the last three times he's tried this. She always gave the same response of she just wasn't sure and sometimes played off that she forgot the other times… she didn't want things to get awkward between them. This time however… she decided it was time to tell him the truth.

"... I'm… I'm sorry… You're a nice guy Eric… but I… I just want to be friends," the blonde apologized. She wasn't one hundred percent sure the first two times, the third time she had a strong feeling that she didn't feel that way… this time for sure she knew this is what she felt.

The cheerfulness on Eric's face practically melted off at that answer. Rachel could barely react as Eric grabbed her wrist rather roughly and practically threw her into a nearby alley. Surprise was etched on her face at the dark look on Eric's.

"You know… that's what they all say… and I'm SICK of it!" Eric growled as he advanced on the blond, backing her further into the alley… and finding no way out.

….

Nick was agitated… here he was heading off to the police station to pick up Barry AGAIN, when he could be at home doing some research so he could be ahead in the upcoming semester. But it seems like Barry can't even keep out of trouble for a solid two months… then again this had to be a record for the pink haired boy.

"Hey Nick!" Barry called from behind the bars as a lanky ginger haired cop let the boy out with an annoyed look on his face.

"Try to keep my cousin out of any more trouble…" the cop sighed as Barry ran over to Nick… who looked equally annoyed.

"I can only do so much James… I can only do so much…"

"I'm standing right here ya know," Barry huffed, but seemed to be ignored by the black haired boy and his own cousin.

"I'm just glad he's only sticking to minor offenses and nothing major…" James sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I'll be glad if he doesn't get arrested anymore."

"I'll be glad when you guys realize I'm still right here guys…"

"We realize Barry. We just hope you take our words to heart before you get in trouble again," Nick pointed out causing Barry to groan.

"You know that you're pretty much my impulse control Nick."

"As your impulse control I'm telling you to take these words to heart."

"As the one with no impulse control I make no promises!"

Nick sighed deeply at this and pinched the bridge of his nose, silently asking what he's ever done to be stuck having to deal with Barry… then he remembers it was his own choice to deal with Barry and he silently curses himself.

"Let's just go before you do something stupid again…" Nick muttered as he turned to leave the station. Barry however turned to James for a moment.

"Keep me posted with that case stuff next time I see ya!"

"No promises Barry…"

The two friends then began to leave… only to freeze when they saw an officer escorting a familiar face to an interview room. Almost immediately and before Nick himself could react, Barry rushed over in an instant and calling out their name.

"Rachel!" He stopped mere inches from her and what he saw made his eyes widen.

She had a bruise on her left cheek, a sure sign of someone hitting her square in the face really hard…. And the small blood spatter that was on her. Her eyes were dulled, almost completely devoid of what little life they usually showed and her blond hair dripped a little from the rain outside.

"Rachel? Hey…" Barry tried to get her to respond but it almost seemed as if she was in a trance. The officer next to her glanced sadly to the pink haired boy and the black haired one who had finally came over to check on his other friend.

"She a friend of yours Barry?"

"Yeah, she is… What's wrong with her Jamie?" Nick took a moment to glance at his friend with a 'Are you fucking serious' look when he said the cops name.

"... Do the both of you also know an Eric Halbert?"

That name immediately got both boy's attention.

"... What happened?" Nick immediately asked, both he and Barry not wanting to believe that Eric could have done something to Rachel… but also not wanting to believe something worse happened from the blood they saw on the mentioned blond.

"... Eric…"

….

Katie was sitting in one of the pews as they were going over everything her aunt did in life. The words of the ones closest to her fell on deaf ears to Katie as her mind was more focused inward at the moment.

The fact her Aunt had been one of the nine victims was one of the few things that haunted her… but what was really getting to her was all the chaos that had been going on near her current home. First was the dead body that she and her friends had found. She had never been able to get the terrified look on the person's face out of her head giving her a lot of sleepless nights.

The second thing was trying to figure out what the hell was happening with Rachel. Her friend's blackouts became worse thanks to her new medication as before that she only had one every few months and it was hardly ever drastic… but after the change it happened nearly every week and the worst to happen was the day Rachel fainted.

"Please… Get someone from your mom's company to find out what the hell is in these!" Katie had pleaded to Barry that day. They are just waiting for the results now on just what those pills are supposed to be for… after all Katie's pretty sure Antidepressants aren't supposed to have blackouts as a side effect.

Katie has also been keeping up with the news… more out of morbid curiosity if this "Back alley killer" is making more head way in the city… or if the body they found was just a coincidence. The only thing so far that she got was information on the victim and who they were. There seemed to be nothing else major since then. That was at least a relief for her. Though the night when Rachel had no medicine had been rather concerning… after all Katie had woken up to the sound of Rachel crying. When she went to investigate she found the blond curled up and muttering how she was sorry to someone.

Her phone vibrating snapped her out of her thoughts. Glancing around cautiously she snuck out with the excuse of using the bathroom. Once away from her family she answered her phone.

"Now's not a really good time…" She hissed keeping her voice down.

" _I know… I know but this is VERY important Katie!"_ It was Nick. Nick hardly ever called her unless it was important… which really worried the brunette.

"... What happened Nick?"

" _... I was off to pick up Barry from the police station again."_

"Seriously?"

" _Let me finish… As we were leaving Rachel got escorted in."_

Katie's heart nearly stopped at hearing that.

" _She was beaten and had blood on her but… the blood's not hers…."_

Katie didn't know what to say at all… she was stuck somewhere between disbelief and worry.

" _... Eric's been killed…"_

Katie nearly dropped her phone right then and there in shock.

….

Rachel remained silent even with all the gentle coaxing from the officer and her friend. Her mind was in a frenzy after what had happened and everything was just on autopilot at the moment. Nothing seemed real… Not the pain she felt from the bruises and the hurt ribs from when Eric beat her up… nor was the fact Eric had been murdered right in front of her eyes.

 _She had been pushed into the alley. A dead end right in front of her, and an angry Eric right behind her. She had never seen Eric get angry before… he'd always seemed to just take things in stride and be the one who never seemed to get mad about anything._

 _She wasn't paying attention to what he was saying, only trying to think of a way to get out of there._

 _ **If I land a good enough kick… I should be able to stun him for a bit to run.**_ _She thought to herself. After all this wasn't like the Eric she knew at all… so she had to be careful. When she saw an opening she dashed for it, fully prepared to kick the brunette if he tried something… only to get punched hard across the face, sending her falling to the ground._

" _Here I thought I got it right… found the right person… but you're just like every other bitch aren't you," Eric growled, kicking Rachel hard in the side as she tried to pull herself up. She found herself gasping from the sharp pain in her ribs as he kicked a second… a third and a fourth time, not letting up at all in his assault._

" _S-Sto- AH!" she tried to plead only for Eric to grab her by the neck and pull her up. She could tell he was saying something to her… but she was more focused on trying to get air as he squeezed her neck. Almost instantly as if on autopilot, her leg shot out… and hit Eric in the nether region with surprising strength and accuracy._

" _FUCK!" he dropped her immediately, letting her take the refreshing breaths of air and try to re gather her thoughts for a moment. Adrenaline was pumping through her veins and everything was telling her in this moment to run… and she was just about to as Eric was coming back in… only to stop and cough out blood. Some of it splattered onto her cheek and the coat she had but the rest found its way to the ground… and a large pool of it staining his shirt like he had just been stabbed._

 _No… that wasn't quite right…_ _ **he was stabbed through with a large blade.**_

 _Eric's anger faded away into horrified surprise as his own life started to slip away._

" _ **You son of a mother fucking whore monkey!"**_

 _Rachel's eyes were wide at the sudden voice. It sounded… so familiar to her… but that feeling only lasted a few seconds when Eric's body was practically thrown with ease closer to the entrance of the alley… but no one was at the other end of that blade she saw… now that she thought about it the blade seemed to vanish as well._

 _No… it didn't vanish_ … _**there was someone there holding it…**_

 _He was tall, from what she could tell she herself barely reached this man's shoulder. She could hear the slight rattling of chains as his arms moved. He had a hood covering his head and his back was facing towards her as the mystery man seemed more focused on Eric's dead body. What really got her though… was what appeared to be a scythe in his right hand… and the dripping blood that mixed with the rain from above._

 _A scream was heard from outside the alley as Rachel stood back, frozen and unable to move her eyes from the man as he stabbed Eric's body a few extra times… as if he didn't trust that the guy was actually dead. She swore he was saying something else but..._

The rest was kind of a blur… she couldn't remember if she saw the man's face or not nor could she remember exactly what he was shouting as he stabbed Eric. But what she did know was that someone, probably on the outside of the alley, had called the police and here she was… alive and in pain.

"... Hey Rachel…"

Someone was trying to talk to her again… she had no idea what to even say. She also had no idea who was even talking to her… she was more focused on trying to figure out what she had seen.

"... Katie's on the phone…." Rachel could only turn her head at that. It was Nick talking to her and he looked concerned. Still she said nothing, her dead eyes simply stared. Nick frowned at this and held the phone up to her ear for her… she raised her own hand and took hold, allowing Nick to let go.

" _Rachel! You okay? What happened?"_ Katie asked on the other end. The concern was strong in her voice.

" _Rachel please… I heard Eric was killed… please just… just… just talk to me…"_ there was a sob at the end… Katie was… Crying? Rachel's head rose up a bit at the sound. Suddenly making her much more aware of her surroundings. The female police officer in front of her with an unreadable expression, Barry at her side with a look of pure concern and worry and Nick… Nick was looking at her with pity in his eyes.

"... I… saw a man…" Rachel started, having the three people around her snap to attention at her words… the first words she'd said in a few hours if the clock was anything to go by.

" _A... a man?"_

"What did this man look like?" the officer asked, a paper and pencil in her hands immediately to write the description. Rachel fell into another silence for a bit before she spoke again.

"... He killed Eric… right in front of my eyes… I… I never saw his face…" Rachel explained carefully… she wasn't as comfortable with the officer as she was with her friends to speak as freely. Even then… she wasn't sure how she could speak to them now… after all Eric was one of her friends at one point… and he destroyed it when he beat her up.

" _Are YOU alright though? I… I heard you have bruises on you…"_

"... Eric… he beat me up… for rejecting him…"

"He did what?!" Barry exclaimed, shooting up from the chair he was sat in earlier and sending it to the ground with a loud thud. Rachel flinched, immediately being noticed by Barry who swiftly apologized. Nick himself seemed to be lost for words… neither of them suspected Eric to be that kind of guy.

" _... He got you too huh…"_ Rachel's eyes widened a bit from that.

"... Too?"

" _After… After graduation he asked me to go out with him. I said no because I didn't think of him that way… He pushed me down the stairs after that. Thankfully the injuries were nothing too serious…"_

"... Why didn't you tell anyone?" Rachel asked, earning confused looks from both boys and the officer on just what was going on now. She wasn't going to tell them… not unless that's what Katie wanted. The brunette was silent on the other end for a while. Rachel could tell though… she was still crying.

" _... I was scared. I… I didn't want it to happen again… but I… I didn't want you guys to worry… I'm not the one to be worried over after all… I'm the worrier."_ There was a slight chuckle at the end of that… it didn't help the situation.

" _He… never acted that way with you guys… and the next time I saw him he acted like it never happened… it pissed me off to be honest. Oh… sorry I've got to go. We're going to be burying Aunt Jenna now."_

She had hung up after a quick goodbye, bringing Rachel's attention back to the others around her. Her eyes darted from both Barry and Nick… both of whom were now concerned for both Rachel and Katie, before settling on the officer. She was still waiting for the blonde to give her whole testimony.

"... Sorry… I'll tell you what I saw now…"

….

Hours later Nick, driving his dad's truck, stopped at Rachel's apartment before Barry offered her to stay the night at his home… after all she needed the support now more than ever. She thought it over for a bit before deciding that yeah… she would. So she went upstairs and gathered things that she would need for the night… before pausing at her work table.

… _Perhaps… now would be a good time to take it with me… After everything that's happened after all…_ She thought to herself as she opened up a drawer and pulled out the item inside. This was the second item from her past, she could never remember when or where she got it but… just having it in her hands or even at her side always comforted her, and it made her feel safe… like an old friend.

 _ **Acquired Chipped Knife.**_

Rachel was about to leave before double checking her items again. She had her pajamas, an extra set of clothes for tomorrow, her toothbrush and toothpaste, hair brush and of course the knife… Her medicine wasn't in her bag.

Glancing over to her bedside table she saw the pill bottle right there, sitting there innocently. She was about to go grab it but stopped herself… Maybe… she could just go one day without it. After all… clearly the worst that happens is nightmares. After today though she's pretty sure that would be a given, even with the medication.

She turned her back and left the room.

….

Nick had just dropped the two off at Barry's home and was on his way back to his own home. He probably could have joined them on the sleepover… but his dad needed the truck in the morning and it was to short notice for him to even spend the night. Sure he was going to be 18 this summer… but his parents still had rules.

As he pulled to a stop at a light he saw that there was still a bit of light left in the sky behind the rain clouds. From the time displayed on the dash as well it wasn't that late either…

His dad could wait for his truck a little while longer as he decided that he was going to visit with Reverend Black for a while. He had a few things to talk about this time. Plus this would technically be his first visit of the week. So he wouldn't have to hear from him on how he should spend more time with his peers.

Then again he probably would anyways…. It was like the old man to chastise him for hanging around so often. Not his fault he wanted someone to talk to that would take him seriously… And someone who didn't worry all the time when he had something very serious to talk about.

….

Barry's house was big… not like a two story Upper Middle Class home, but more like a rather large home that was kinda like a mansion. However it was more in a strange grey area between the mansions of the one percent and an Upper Middle Class home. Rachel was never really sure where to put it herself.

Barry did come from a family with money, but she was just never really sure if they were super rich or just made a really good paycheck. Everytime she saw his house she always felt the need to just stop for a moment and ponder if it was considered a mansion or if it wasn't. She was just never sure.

When that moment was over Barry was already opening the door only for a small West Highland Terrier to come running up to Barry and bark happily at the pink haired boy's arrival. Immediately Barry picked up the small dog and commenced the baby talk.

"Hello! Did you miss daddy?" A lick on his nose from the white dog was his response as Barry laughed. "I love you to Cereal!"

After that Barry immediately turned to the blond and faced her with the small dog.

"Is that Auntie Rachel? Huh? Is it?" Barry grinned as the dog barked happily with its tail wagging rapidly. Rachel smiled a little at this and began petting the little dog's head as the excited pooch began licking at her arm.

"Hi Cereal… Hey Barry."

"What's up?"

"I… never got why you named your dog Cereal…" Barry just grinned at this.

"Because he's a Cereal Killer! Just like his name tag says!"

 _Sometimes I will never understand your humor Barry,_ Rachel thought to herself as she simply continued to pet the little dog.

After the proper pet greeting time, the duo made their way down to the basement and into a room with a large Television and at least three comfy couches and four bean bags all set up right in front of the screen. Rachel set her bag near one of the couches and sat down in said couch while Barry took a seat on a different, near by one, then proceeded to take up that whole couch. Cereal followed them down and jumped up onto Barry's chest with his little tail wagging wildly and licking Barry's chin.

"You wanna watch something on Netflix?" Barry asked, one of his hands reaching back and grabbing a Remote while the other was petting the little white dog.

Rachel thought about it for a moment… only to have her thoughts starting to wander back to Eric's murder. Her hand lightly touched the forming bruise on her face as she did, causing Barry to frown and try thinking of something himself… only to carefully pick up his dog and place him down gently on the ground as he got off his ass and walked over to a shelf with movies on it.

Searching through till he found what he was looking for, he snagged the DVD and made his way over to Rachel, holding it out for her to look at.

"How about we watch this?" The blond glanced at the movie before her eyes widened at it.

"... Doesn't that have killer ghosts in it?"

"Yup."

"... And… you want to watch it?"

"Hey if me screaming like a girl, cuddling Cereal and hiding in a blanket bundle will make you happy, then hell I might have to throw in crying like a baby if it would make you laugh."

"... You don't have to do that."

"Don't give me that. You're one of my best friends and you went through shit… I'm willing to go through shit to if it will help any of my friends."

"...Even a haunted house?"

"... One step at a time now…"

Rachel couldn't help but smile a little at that response.

* * *

 _ **Fun Fact 3:**_ Two things in this chapter are based on real things. The Stripper fish story is based on something that actually happened when I was working the front counter at my job... and Eric's personality and behavior is based on someone I actually knew, and was once friends with in Middle School... Thankfully he never went to drastic because I got help as soon as possible... but I honestly fear what could have happened if I never brought the harassment up to a teacher.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter 4:**_

It was nearly 11:30pm now and the two had watched more than just the ghost movie. They had gone through Netflix before finding some movies in the "Children's" Section to help calm Barry down. They ended up doing a running commentary on some of the movies.

Well more like Barry did a lot of talking and Rachel would join in on one or two comments here and there. After the last movie, Rachel was about to get ready for bed when Barry seemed to remember something.

"Hey Rachel…" She glanced over at him with a confused look. "Whose Doctor Danny?"

Rachel blinked at the name.

"Who?"

"Oh uh… Well last week before your blackout… You said 'Doctor Danny' before passing out… I just forgot to ask the last few times we all met up," Barry explained allowing Rachel to think the name over for a moment.

Nothing turned up for a little while before a headache began. Barry was worried as she looked in pain from the headache… it almost felt like the last time.

"Rach-" Barry began, only for the blonde to snap out of it with wide eyes.

"He… He was my therapist… years ago." Barry blinked at that, he had not expected an answer like that at all. He watched as she turned to him with her eyes still wide. "What… what caused me to say that name?"

Barry shifted a little at the question. He remembered that it happened after he told the story of the haunted church… and he was naturally just uncomfortable talking about it.

"Tell me… please…" the desperation in her voice and what little could be seen on her face caused him to give in.

"I'll… I'll just get to the main points of the story," He sighed and leaned back trying to get comfortable. He took a deep breath to prepare himself before he finally got around to it.

"I went to the church Nick goes to often… you know to visit that Reverend Black guy. I was in the library and I accidently broke something. I freaked out and grabbed a book to pretend that I was reading when I heard someone coming in. The guy called my bluff instantly and well… he was this freaky ass doctor covered in blood… Though aside from that… the guys eyes really freaked me out the most."

"His… eyes?"

"Yeah… I remember them most… Mostly because he stared in my mine… His left one seemed normal but his right… it… it was like someone shoved two different-"

" **Eyes together."** Barry paused after the two spoke at the exact same time. Rachel also seemed to pause and rub at one of her temples, eyes narrowed in confusion.

"... Okay how did you know what I was gonna say… I don't think I've ever even told Katie that part… wait did I?"

"I… I don't know… it… seemed right to say."

A silence fell between the two, both trying to figure out what that was all about. Barry suddenly thought of something different from what Rachel was thinking.

 _Is… this because I haven't taken my medicine?... What's going on?_

"Maybe we found something that gets through your blackouts!" Barry exclaimed suddenly very excited and proud. Rachel blinked at that but also realized… she did remember something from when she was close to turning thirteen. She's never remembered anything from that time… except for her parent's death… and waking up in the hospital months after her thirteenth birthday.

An idea came to her immediately as she turned to Barry.

"... Could you take me to that church?"

Barry jumped at that.

"What?!" Rachel flinched at the volume of his voice and immediately avoided eye contact. The pink haired boy quickly apologized before he revised what he said. "Why… would you want ME, to take you to a haunted place?"

"... When you spoke about the ghost you saw… I remembered a few things… If… If I could see the ghost for myself then… then maybe I could remember some more," she answered quietly, her gaze still away from Barry's face and seemed to be more focused on her own hands on her lap.

Barry was hesitant, looking at his friend for a moment… He suddenly raised his own fist and punched himself in the face, startling Rachel.

"Fffff- Okay… ow… I'll help."

"Did… you have to punch yourself?"

"Nah… I had to punch a coward… But just to be safe. Cereal you ready for walkies?"

The white puppy barked happily and started running around at the mentioned walks. Rachel however couldn't help but smile a little… despite the words entering her head that always helped to add the hint of sadness in her smiles.

….

Barry nearly lost his nerve when they parked near the church. The old Gothic building looking so much more creepy at night with little light from the streetlamps to brighten it up at all. He was half tempted to punch himself again when Rachel opened up the passenger side door and jumped out. Cereal's leash in her hands and the small dog following her out as she did.

"AH wait!" Barry quickly pulled the keys out of his car's ignition and went into the glove compartment to pull out a flashlight from within. He exited the car soon after and followed after the blond. He turned the light on only for it to flicker a bit… as he was about to hit it though a light flashed in his face as Rachel held up her cellphone with it's flashlight app activated.

"... Your phone is charged right?" the blond asked as Barry stared blankly before quickly slapping himself for being an idiot. Rachel flinched as he did that.

"Sorry… I wasn't thinking." A bark came from his dog, who immediately got the attention of the pink haired boy, who tried to shoosh his dog. "Cereal no, we're trying to be stealthy."

"I don't think flashlights help with that…"

"... So we should turn the lights on in the church?"

"That's an even worse idea Barry…" Rachel then handed the leash over to the proper owner and the duo, plus the dog, went right up to the door for a moment before reconsidering that idea.

"... Maybe someone left a window unlocked?" Barry suggested and noticed that Rachel was already ahead of him looking for one. Sucking it up he followed her with his dog by his side, only to stop when said dog started sniffing around like he needed to go.

"Hold up, can't let Cereal go inside yet."

Rachel paused at that only to blink and face Barry after noticing something.

"Uh Barry…"

"Hm?"

"Cereal's sniffing a cross…"

"Yeah and…! Cereal no!"

It was too late… the dog had relieved itself on the cross making Barry's jaw drop and Rachel to just look away. The little white dog finished up before trotting over to Barry with happy pants while the pink haired boy continued to stand there in shock.

"... My dog's going to hell for that…"

"Probably…" Rachel simply responded before noticing… something in one of the windows. It… looked like a figure of a kid standing in the shadows of the building. She was about to point her phone's light at it only to watch it raise it's hand and… unlock the window before leaving quickly. She glanced back to Barry, wondering if he noticed the figure as well only to see he was still fussing over his pet… and seemed to be begging to God to forgive the little guy for following nature's call.

Glancing back and forth between the window and Barry for a bit she decided to speak up finally.

"… This window's unlocked…" She wasn't sure if telling him that someone had unlocked it for them was the best thing to say at the moment… but if it turned out that someone was dangerous she was at least prepared this time. Barry perked up at the sound of her voice and saw the latch for the window was indeed up, allowing it to be opened.

"Whoa, that's lucky!" Barry flinched at how loud his own voice got… maybe he really wasn't good at this whole sneaking around thing after all. After making sure no one was going to appear and question them, they opened up the window. They were completely thankful that it didn't have a screen that needed to be taken care of. It was clearly big enough to crawl through but the biggest problem was how high it was… Rachel would need a little boost to get in with her shorter height.

"... Mind helping me up?"

"No problem." With a grin Barry, easily lifted her enough that she could get through the rest of the way on her own. With a mild drop to the ground she was able to stand up straight and lean out the window a bit for Barry to hand her Cereal. As soon as he brought the dog inside she thought she heard something… no, someone saying her name.

She turned and tried to find the source of the voice… it wasn't Barry's at all, that much she knew. She also knew something was causing Cereal to feel uneasy as the tiny dog started to growl in her arms at nothing. Rachel was starting to feel a little uncomfortable in there as when she shined the light all around the room there was no sign of another living being other than her and the dog. Barry soon crawled his way in and noticed how both Rachel and Cereal seemed on edge.

"What's wrong?"

"... I… thought I heard someone say my name…" Barry's face remained blank for a moment… before he tried to get out through the window he JUST came through in a panic. Rachel had to stop him… thankfully she did but Barry was still kind of freaked out.

"What if it was the doctor ghost?" Barry shuddered while Rachel thought it over for a bit while Cereal continued to growl at nothing. Barry was more worried about that as he knows his dog… and his dog doesn't just growl at nothing.

"But… how would he know my name? I've… I've never been to this church before…"

"Please don't make this creepier then it already is," Barry pleaded as he took his dog back from the blond, the presence of the tiny dog making him feel a little more brave but not by much. Rachel didn't seem to hear him as she was more uncomfortable with whatever had said her name.

Taking a deep breath Rachel straightened up and began walking off, Barry noticing this quickly and following close behind. He was looking around with discomfort and it didn't help that his dog was still growling at nothing… only to seemingly stop and glance around confused. Barry really didn't like that part.

"Actually you know what, let's go back. I mean-"

"You can go back if you want… I'm not stopping you," Rachel cut him off quickly. Barry hesitated for a moment before taking a deep breath and following her.

"... You still need a ride and I don't abandon my friends remember…"

The blond paused at that and looked down. Of course she remembered… most of the time that is. There was one time she swears she will never forget though.

"... Sorry…"

It was all she felt that could be said at the moment… until she saw someone behind Barry. She was about to say something until the person poked the pink haired boy, causing said boy to scream.

"Are you trying to wake the dead?" it was a child's voice asking the question. The kid didn't look older than 12, he had a playful smirk on his face and it showed in his green eyes. His auburn hair looked messy, like he hardly ever took time to brush through it or always wore something over it. He wore a closed jacket with a red scarf, a pair of blue jeans and some black boots.

"HOLY-" Barry started to loudly say only for both the kid and Rachel to stop him.

"Shhh."

"... A-Are you a ghost?" Barry asked after quieting down, his heart pounding in his chest. The boy gave him a deadpanned look.

"I don't know much about ghosts… but I'm pretty sure if I was one I wouldn't have poked you. Pretty sure we also wouldn't be having this conversation right now either."

Rachel could have sworn she saw a small smirk crossing the boy's face… But then again the kid did kneel down and beckon towards Cereal so it could have been more towards the dog then anything else.

"Bullshit… I had one with a ghost once!"

"Oh? Huh the more you know," the kid looked kinda surprised before he started petting the small white dog, who in turn started sniffing at him before wagging his tail happily to the attention.

"... What are you doing here anyways?" Rachel finally asked. The boy smiled up at her.

"Oh I heard a rumor of this place being haunted. So I made a bet with a few friends. I prove this place isn't haunted by staying the night, and I get twenty bucks."

"It is haunted kid," Barry growled, causing the boy's smile to fade into a look of disinterest when he looked over to the pink haired boy.

"Coming from a guy with Pink hair and screams like a girl at a minor poke in the side…"

"First off, I lost a bet. Secondly I was expecting this place to be empty."

"Oh then who unlocked the window for you?" the kid smirked as Barry tried to come up with a retort only to pause and actually try thinking about it.

"... That was you I saw... wasn't it?" Rachel asked. Barry turned towards her quickly with a "What the fuck" look on his face.

"You saw someone unlock a window and you didn't tell me?!"

"... We got in didn't we?"

"You're welcome."

Barry was starting to notice a minor pattern with how this kid spoke… mostly with how nice and friendly he sounded when talking to Rachel… and how annoyed he sounded when talking to him.

 _This kid is out of his league… she's also a lot older than you kid,_ Barry thought to himself and holding back on actually punching the kid… after all he only has four things on his list of things to never punch. Friends are number one, Elderly are number two, Children are number three and finally he will never punch the disabled.

"Aren't you supposed to be in bed though kid?" Barry asked, his tone dripping with his growing annoyance with the kid.

"Well I was till I heard some yelling outside." Barry grew embarrassed at this, before straightening up.

"At home?"

"The bet remember you idiot?" The kid smirked as Barry was so close to punching the kid but held himself back.

"You're so lucky I don't hit kids.."

"... Aren't your parent's going to be worried though?" Rachel spoke up, the kid glanced over to her with… an almost sad look?

"Nah, they just think I'm at a friend's place is all… so you gonna continue this twenty questions without introductions?"

"... God damn it this kid is like a mini Nick…"

"... What?"

"He's a friend of ours… I'm Rachel Gard-... Stewarts…" Rachel said catching herself before saying her last name she had before she got adopted… she still wasn't used to the last name "Stewarts" even after all these years. But it was still better to use as for some reason she had reporters trying to get interviews with her for a while until she moved.

The kid didn't seem to react to her almost slip up, but instead smiled.

"Edward Kingsley. Call me Eddie please."

"We're seriously doing this?" Barry questioned, to annoyed with the kid to even give a proper introduction of himself to the kid.

"He's Barry McCoy… and his dog Cereal Killer."

"RACHEL!"

"Serial Killer?"

"... He kills cereal boxes."

"Cereal box- OH **Cereal** Killer," Eddie laughed. Barry pretty much groaned while staring up to the ceiling… almost begging to a silent god to give him strength to endure this.

….

Nick was back at home, wide awake and on his laptop. A pair of reading glasses on his face as he looked up cases involving the recent Back Alley Murders.

 _Every killer has an MO… There's gotta be something that connects all these cases together aside from the multiple stab wounds… and the location._ Nick thought to himself, having already gone through one night before with no sleep and was approaching his second… an average thing by this point.

It's usually harder for his friends to detect when he's missed his first night, as he's learned to better handle it… the second day though he knows for a fact both his family and his friends will be trying to get him to go to bed. He promised himself he would go to bed… when he picked up what connected all these killings or even any hint that this could have been done by multiple people.

" _But Nick, that's something for the police, not a seventeen year old…" Yeah well a Seventeen year old would normally not be in Law School this early either, and it's called research… Am I seriously talking to myself in my head now?_ Nick paused his work at that thought, his expression going from confusion to wide eyed realization.

"I'm more tired than I thought…." Checking the time his laptop displayed he swore that he would try to wrap up in the next hour to head off and get some sleep… maybe.

Gazing back at his search window he scrolled through the links that he had already checked out, and checking a few other ones here and there only to back out as it was apparent they wouldn't give him the info he needed. Going through he stopped at one in particular.

It was of a news article from six years ago. Pushing his glasses up a bit he began reading through the article… finding more of the story on how the original Back Alley Murderer got caught… and the girl who survived. **Rachel Gardner.**

He knew that was Rachel's name before she was adopted… but he never expected her to be in anything big like this… or even at the site of a building collapse.

 _She was found with a gunshot wound in her side, passed out from loss of blood and sent to a hospital… at the hospital it seemed that when she woke up she practically begged to see the murderer… Stockholm Syndrome? Doctors found traces of some unknown hallucinogenic in some of the blood along with even more minor traces of some poison… What the hell was going on?_

Nick was curious… and infuriated at the same time. This was something that had happened to his friend from a past she barely remembered… but at the same time he wanted to question her more on it so he could find out just WHAT happened. Though he doubted he would ever get those answers. After all Rachel's memories weren't a reliable source anymore… not with her blackouts being a constant thing that just removes said memories when triggered.

"DAMN IT!"

"Hey Nick! I know you don't sleep but some people in this house do so shut up!" the voice of his sister shouted back at him. Before he could retort back the stern voice of his father broke through to both of them.

"IT'S 1:28 AM BOTH OF YOU GO TO SLEEP!"

"Sorry dad!" Joan called out, before presumably turning over in her bed and trying to go back to sleep.

"Sorry…" Nick muttered, but didn't follow through with what his father told him to do. Instead he turned his attention back to the news article… and the picture it had of his friend when she was Thirteen.

… _She doesn't look that bad with long hair I guess… but it feels weird that it's not shoulder length. I wonder though…. Is there any way to at least jog her memory?_

Curiously he opened up a new search window and began looking for ways to try and jog someone's memory. He bookmarked a few that seemed promising… but scoffed at one entirely.

 _Hypnotism… that's just plain stupid._

Still engrossed in his own research he jumped at the sound of his cell phone ringing at… 2:53 am?

"Shouldn't whoever you are be asleep?" Nick asked immediately when he answered the call.

" _... You know Barry and Katie would be saying the same thing…"_ It was Rachel's voice on the other end. Suddenly it didn't surprise him as much that she would be calling him… after all Barry was more likely than not asleep and she DID witness Eric's murder… unless she had a blackout then this is a lot more confusing.

"... What's wrong?" There was a pause at the other end of the phone.

" _Um… theoretically speaking… how… how would one defend themselves from a ghost?"_

Silence… Nick couldn't believe what he had just been asked. Rachel… one of his most rational friends… was asking him something so irrational it made his brain hurt trying to even ponder just what caused her to even THINK of asking something like that.

"... Why the hell are you asking me this?"

Silence was on the other end of the line… though listening carefully he could pick up the sounds of rustling papers and other almost unidentifiable noises… only to hear Barry's voice in the background asking something he couldn't pick up completely.

"Did Barry set you up to this?"

" _... No…."_

"Then why the hell are you calling me at nearly three in the morning for something as stupid as this?"

" _... Don't tell Katie…."_

"... What are you doing?"

" _... Barry and I… snuck into the church… and got attacked by a ghost…"_

Nick was quiet. He was trying to process just what he was told by his blonde friend. It made absolutely no logical sense to him. Being attacked by ghosts? Sneaking into a church at night? The fact that Rachel believed in ghosts?

"... What kind of drugs did your doctor prescribe you?"

" _... Antidepressants…. Last I checked…."_

Nick groaned.

"Okay… What the hell did you two DO in the church to 'get attacked' then?"

" _... You don't believe me."_

"You called me at three in the morning asking about ghosts, which do not exist. I'm going to have a hard time believing anything about that."

The line went dead at that. Nick pinched the bridge of his nose, pushing his reading glasses up as he did… only for him to realize after a little while that he was kind of an asshole at the end there. Clearly she sounded kind of scared and was honestly looking for advice… and he was a dick who didn't even try to humor the idea of spirits to try and calm her down. Hell she was attacked and had seen a murder HOURS AGO and was probably still paranoid about that.

"Damn it…" He picked his phone up again and dialed her number. Mostly to apologize for how much of an ass he was… only for it to go to voicemail. He tried again at least two more times, getting the same result and practically slamming his head on his desk.

 _I really fucked up if she's doing this…_ Taking a deep breath he speed dialed Barry's number, knowing he would have his phone and that he would be with her. After the first two rings the line was picked up.

" _Yo, whatcha still doing up?"_

"Don't play dumb Barry… You know Rachel called me… could you just put her on the line for a moment?"

" _Wha- OH that's right her phone died. Alright give me a minute and I'll put you on speaker."_

Nick paused at that… he… hadn't upset Rachel enough to cause her to hang up… and not answer his calls? Her phone just died…

" _Alright you're on!"_

" _Do you seriously have to yell?"_ an unfamiliar child's voice was heard in immediate response to Barry's loud voice.

" _Shut up Nick Jr.!"_

" _And will you quit calling me that!"_

" _... Sorry you have to deal with that Nick."_

"... Who the hell is this 'Nick Jr.'?"

" _MY NAME IS EDDIE! Christ is that too hard to remember?"_

" _... No it's actually pretty easy to remember…"_

" _Don't go taking Nick Jr.'s side on this!"_

" _For the hundredth time it's EDDIE!"_

"Will someone explain what the hell is going on?"

" _Forgive them Nicolas… Children will be children after all."_ The voice of Reverend Black seemed to stop the other sounds going on…

" _ **HEY!"**_

Except for that comment from both Barry and this Eddie he heard on the phone.

"Reverend Black? What are you doing up?"

" _Well your friends were none too quiet… to the point I woke to the sound of a teenage girl screaming bloody murder. To my surprise it wasn't the girl who screamed, and my Library was in ruins."_

" _... We're helping pick it up before we leave…"_

Nick was now trying to process exactly what the fuck was going on now… and was having trouble picking it up at all. He wanted, no needed to figure out just what the fuck was going on. Screw curfew laws, he was driving over to the church right now and seeing this disaster for himself. He didn't bother telling them or even saying anything as he hung up the phone and proceeded to exit his room to grab his dad's keys.

He had just started the truck and left immediately… forgetting how most of his family consists of light sleepers… and how his sister watched him drive off with their father's vehicle from her window.

….

As soon as Nick arrived he hurried right into the church… only to slam into the front doors as they were locked.

"Fuck… Going around… ugh." Nick groaned in slight pain. He turned around and walked away from the doors. He rounded his way to the back of the church knowing for a fact if the Reverend was in, that's where he would have more likely than not come in… after all the front of the church had stairs while the back was wheelchair access.

Nick ran around, not really paying attention to the opened window as he hurried. When he got to the back, he tried the door and boom he got a stroke of luck with the door being left unlocked. With the door open he went right inside and navigated by memory to the Library… Oh wait… the lights were on.

 _Wow I'm out of it…_ He thought for a moment before making way to the Library. When he entered it looked like a disaster zone. Books were thrown everywhere, some bookshelves had fallen, a few of the potted plants were smashed on the ground… basically it looked more like a Tornado had blown through rather than two teenagers and a… whatever age this Eddie kid was.

Speaking of which the three mentioned people, he was pretty sure with the number of people that he heard over the phone that the auburn haired boy was Eddie, were picking up… or at least stopped to stare at him as he entered. Reverend Black was the only one who didn't look as surprised as the others… and instead looked rather disappointed… and had Eddie's dog sleeping on his lap.

"You know I would have been more surprised if you actually stayed home like any other person," the Reverend spoke, the other three still more confused on just why he was even here.

"... I had to see what the hell just happened… and I still have no idea what the fuck happened here…"

"Being completely honest that's a piece of information I would like to know as well," the priest responded, casting his gaze over to the three other occupants of the room… all but one shifted uncomfortably under said gaze. Rachel simply averted her eyes to her hands that held some of the fallen books, allowing the clear bruise on her face to be made seen… but also for Nick to notice that her hand seemed to be injured.

"... Well we got attacked for starters…" Barry started… Which to Nick it meant everything was going to go downhill from there.

* * *

Fun Fact 4: This chapter was actually my second favorite chapter to write, Chapter 5 being number one as you will see when I do post it. I'm sure there's gonna be other ones in the future but both Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 were part of something I had long planned out before the rest of the story itself.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter 5:**_

 _After Barry and Eddie had gotten over their… bickering for the most part. Barry decided to lead them to the Library… or rather was pushed into leading them as Rachel had no clue, Cereal was a dog and Eddie… well Barry didn't necessarily like him all that much._

" _Mind if I ask what brings you here?" Eddie asked, looking up at Rachel as he spoke. Barry wanted to turn around and tell him to mind his own business when Rachel spoke up before him._

" _I… wanted to see the ghost Barry was talking about."_

" _Which one would that be?"_

" _Wait what do you mean by that?" Barry questioned as he stopped walking, his forgotten fear starting to grow once again._

" _Rumor has it this place has multiple ghosts… A Bloody Doctor who appears more to people with blue eyes, a passing apparition of someone from the murders… it's a new one every time a funeral happens, a crazy woman who enjoys to bring physical pain to others and one who's usually seen in the Graveyard."_

 _Barry nearly lost his nerve right then and there. Rachel stopped him from bolting and tried to calm him down, though Eddie seemed to just smirk at the reaction Barry had to the mention of multiple ghosts._

" _... appears to people with blue eyes?" Rachel muttered to herself as she held Barry back from running off. The familiarity of that was practically biting at her brain… but for some reason it just wasn't coming to her. She knew that she had told him earlier that he could leave if he wanted… but maybe this was just her being selfish… but she didn't want to be alone._

 _ **Never again…**_

" _... Hey are you crying?"_

 _Rachel seemed to snap out of her thoughts at the question from the confused Eddy. Was it directed at Barry? Or.._

 _ **Why… are there tears on my face?**_

 _Barry's panic was slowly replaced with worry._

" _... I guess I am…" Rachel responded, wiping away the tears… still not knowing exactly what caused them. The small dog was nudging at her leg, trying to get some attention from her with little whines and large eyes._

 _Eddie seemed to just stare with confusion._

… _._

 _Eventually, with much hesitation from Barry, they arrived at the Library… it was still dark and the only light in the room was from Rachel's phone… until the lights to the room came on suddenly. Both teen's startled they turned to see Eddie near the light switch._

" _... What? There's no windows in this room, so you can turn your phone's light off now."_

" _Stop being a mini Nick…" Barry muttered in an annoyed tone. Eddie seemed to catch the words though and seemed very annoyed._

" _Will you quit calling me a 'Mini Nick'... I don't even know who Nick is!"_

" _Fine, stop being a Nick Jr.!"_

" _... That's not much different Barry…"_

" _Screw it it's easier to say!"_

" _So is Eddie you know!"_

 _Rachel couldn't help but feel uncomfortable with the arguing between the two. She tried to retreat from both of them by going around one of the bookshelves and sitting down while covering her ears. It was a way for her to try and block them out… but also as a way to try and block out the memories she had of her parents having one of their arguments and fights. She did this whenever her friends or someone she knows starts to get into a fight… this was just her coping mechanism by this point._

 _She sat there for a little while and felt herself almost falling asleep… until she felt Cereal trying to crawl his way onto her lap._

" _... Did Barry let you off the leash?" she asked, letting the puppy crawl onto her lap and nuzzle up closer to her. She smiled at this, having wanted a puppy for such a long time… this was the closest thing she could get now. That and Barry let her puppy sit when he needed one, so it always felt like she was an actual dog owner when this happened._

 _She wrapped her arms around the little guy, pulling him in for cuddles… and a few puppy kisses from the happy little white dog. The fluffy terrier stopped as one of his ears twitched and turned his head away from her… before growling. Blinking in confusion she glanced up in the direction the little dog was looking in._

" _Ah, now there's a sight I never thought I'd see again."_

 _Rachel froze. Her heart felt like it was pounding hard against her injured ribs and she felt like she absolutely had to either run or fight in that moment. That voice was far to familiar for her to ignore… and it sent shivers of fear down her spine. Everything seemed to slow down in that moment as she took in the sight before her._

 _From the light brown hair that had splatters of blood on it, to the creepy smile with a trail of blood going down from the corner of said smile and past his chin. His mismatched eyes, with the left one being the only one of the two that was real, while the right was like someone took one red and one green eye and mashed them together behind a pair of glasses. The growling from the dog was the only thing that remained constant._

 _Rachel's eyes were wide as she stared in shock at the man… She felt her heart stop in terror when she felt his hand on her cheek, more specifically the bruise that was there. His touch was like piercing ice and felt all the more painful on the bruise._

" _You know… whoever did this should be glad they didn't damage your beautiful peepers."_

 _Instantly Rachel lashed out, her hand holding onto something she grabbed from her bag, causing the man's eyes to widen as he vanished from the sudden strike… from the chipped knife. Heart pounding once again with her other arm holding tight onto the now whimpering dog, Rachel rushed from her spot and towards the other two and more importantly… the door._

 _The two guys saw her rushing and were confused when they saw her running… and the knife in her hand. Or rather the fact her hand wasn't even on the handle and her hand was dripping a little blood._

" _Whoa Rachel what's-" Barry started only to be cut off by the look of fear on Rachel's face._

" _Run…" As soon as she finished that line the only door to the room slammed shut and the lights went dark. Barry and Eddie both immediately jumped, with Barry making a rush for the door and Eddie trying the lights… both to no avail as the door was locked and the lights wouldn't turn on. Barry started slamming his weight into the door as he tried opening it but it still wouldn't budge._

" _What the hell?! Who the hell puts a lock on the outside of a room?!" Barry exclaimed as he tried to find the lock but to no avail. Rachel rushed over and tried slamming her weight into the door along with Barry, though being careful to not ram Cereal into the door with her. The small dog still whimpering in her arm._

 _Barely thinking Rachel nearly raised the knife to slam into the door when Barry caught her wrist._

" _Don't use that it might break!... Wait when did you get this?" Barry asked before helping her with adjusting her grip from the blade to the handle so she wouldn't cut her hand anymore than it already was._

" _Guys I think we have a bigger problem…" Eddie spoke up, and as the other two turned to see what he was talking about… all the books were practically flying off the shelves, effectively scaring Barry into redoubling his efforts to get the fuck out of there… and letting out the most girly scream anyone in that room had ever heard._

 _Rachel's mind was scrambling for something… anything to help them get out of this, as she noticed some of the storm was heading their way from how Eddie flinched back from a book coming right at him. Immediately her attention went to the bookcases. She quickly handed Cereal to the auburn haired kid… who was confused on why he was suddenly holding a tiny white dog now._

" _Barry come on!"_

"... Basically after snapping Barry out of it," Rachel said with Barry interrupting her soon after that was said.

"She slapped me… then had me help her in pushing a bunch of bookshelfs into place to knock the door down. When we did… the uh Reverend found us and suddenly the lights were fixed and working again," Barry wrapped up, rubbing the back of his neck.

Nick could only stare at them with disbelieving eyes… but he did take notice that Barry did look bruised up as well. Probably from being hit by a few hard covered books.

"As I explained on the phone I was sleeping when someone screamed… then I come to see the library destroyed and these two crashing through the door," the Reverend explained. His story wasn't as long as the others as he had been sleeping for most of it… but one question remained.

"Wait… how'd ya get here so quick?" Barry asked.

"... I live in the building out back."

Now this kinda surprised Nick… this was actually the first new thing he learned about the old man in a long time. He honestly thought the priest lived further away or at least somewhere bigger, but here he was… living in a smaller house out in the back of the very church he works at.

"This is all nice and everything… but what the hell is going on?" the voice of Joan caught everyone by surprise, except it caused the Reverend to sigh.

"Apparently thine church is now an open congregation at night…" the elderly priest muttered to himself.

Nick was mostly shocked till the realization of what his sister's appearance here meant settled in for him.

"... Don't tell mom and dad…"

"To late bucko. Dad's engine is the loudest out of the vehicles you know," the black haired young woman pointed out, causing Nick to shift uncomfortably as he had clearly not been thinking when he did everything that lead him to this point.

The sound of Eddie snickering at Nick getting in trouble nearly got the tired teen angry… until the Reverend himself sent a glare to the young boy, causing him to look away and shift uncomfortably from the stare.

"... Hi Joan…" Rachel said, waving her uninjured hand to the black haired girl, who blinked before waving back.

"Hi Ray…. Let me guess Barry did something stupid and you tried to bail him out. Only to have Nick get roped in?" Joan questioned, thinking that she had put it all together… but stared at the auburn haired kid in confusion on just where he stood in this cluster fuck.

"HEY! It wasn't my fault this time!"

"I honestly don't care at this moment who's at fault here… I just want my Library at least set backup for tomorrow so I can go back to sleep before the sermon tomorrow," the priest sighed while pinching the bridge of his nose.

"... Alright. Nick we're helping out before we go home."

"Why me?"

"Because you snuck out of the house just to come here at three in the morning smart ass."

"... You probably should have just gone to bed Nick…" Rachel muttered before yawning, the effects of the day finally wearing on her.

….

After they finished cleaning the Library… and thankfully had no other instances with ghosts. The group left the building with only Eddie staying behind… as the Reverend said he would be contacting the boy's parents about his little late night excursion.

There was an awkward silence between the friends as Joan was still angry with her younger brother. A proper goodbye was unable to be said as the older sibling pushed him into their dad's truck and she got into her "death machine", both starting the cars and driving off.

Barry and Rachel on the other hand got into the boy's car… and immediately the pink haired boy began searching his glove compartment for something, as Rachel sat in the passenger side seat with the sleeping puppy on her lap… and all the pain she should have been feeling coming back to her. Especially from the cut on her hand.

"HA, knew putting a First Aid kit in the car would be a good payoff!" Barry exclaimed, pulling out the box and opening it up. First he pulled out some disinfectant, then some gauze and finally some bandages.

"... Why do you even have that in your car?"

"... You never know if something happens when you're out. Look let's just not question anything at the moment and get that cut treated." Barry stated, holding his hand out for her so he could properly treat the injury. The blond looked between him and her hand for a moment, before slowly extending it so it could be treated.

She winced from the pain caused by the disinfectant being sprayed into the open wound before feeling the gauze being gently placed on it. Finally the white bandages began to wrap around, making sure it was tight… but not to tight that it was unbearable.

"... You're… surprisingly good at this…" she commented once he finished up and she inspected his work. Barry just smirked with pride.

"What can I say? When you get into as many fights as I have you gotta know how to patch yourself up… especially since you got banned from a hospital for punching a Doctor in the face… for five bucks."

"... I still can't believe you actually went through with that when Katie was clearly joking…"

"Heh I'm impulsive, remember?"

"Plus you had a crush on Katie," Rachel smirked a little as Barry blinked and looked away with a bit of embarrassment.

"That was eighth grade Rachel… I got over it in Freshman year. She clearly wasn't interested after all… so I'm not going to push her."

 _You guys would have been cute together though…_ Rachel thought as she stared at her bandaged hand. A feeling of familiarity spreading over her as she did, leading her to looking away from it and over to the dog that was still fast asleep on her lap…. And her mind wandered again as she heard Barry start the car and begin driving them back to his place.

 _Why… did the Reverend seem so familiar… and more importantly… why was Doctor Danny haunting the church?_

….

The minute the two returned to Barry's home and they entered the basement, Rachel collapsed onto the couch her clothing bag was near and was fully intent on just passing out right then and there. Even though questions raked her mind, the fact it was so late at night and she was tired overpowered that confusion though.

She heard Barry say something… probably a good night she wasn't sure. After all as soon as her head was in a more comfortable position on the couch she passed out into the realm of dreams, leaving Barry alone in the waking world.

… _._

 _It was far to quiet. Rain was falling but she couldn't hear the droplets hitting the ground… couldn't hear them hitting the puddles either. Rachel could feel it… but it was like the entire world was on mute... Everything around her had no sound to it… and she was the only one who seemed to make noise._

 _She saw people walking by and around her… and some through her which startled her. Some of them were talking… but there was nothing… not even one of the people who walked through her acknowledging her existence. She tried to talk to someone… ask them where she was or what was going on… but none seemed to hear her… as if she wasn't there at all._

 _ **The street is crowded… but…. I'm alone…**_ _the thought came to her naturally. When the thought passed the rain came down harder, forcing her to try and find shelter from the falling water. She noticed quickly as she hurried that she wasn't wearing shoes… she was in her socks and the outfit she wore before falling asleep. She found herself standing under the canopy of a store, her arms wrapped around herself to try and warm herself up._

 _Something was thrown over her head, startling her into pulling it off… only to find it was a dry coat. Glancing over to the side she gasped in fear at who she saw smiling at her… it was Eric. He… he looked exactly how he did after he was killed._

" _What's wrong? Don't like seeing what you've caused?" his voice was mocking and cruel. Rachel backed away from him, dropping the coat onto the cold ground below._

" _... I… I didn't-"_

" _Oh but you did… After all everything is always your fault isn't it?"_

 _She tried bolting after that… only to bump into someone… no something else. It was the stitched up corpses of her parents… sewn together carefully with multiple lines of different thread colors, twisting through their skin, the sown up smile looking much more grotesque than she remembered and the stuffed arm to replace her father's bad one._

" _ **It's your fault we're stuck in this unhappy relationship. If you didn't exist this would never have happened!"**_ _the amalgamation spoke with both her parents voices… her mother's going off into one of her laughing fits at the end. They held a knife in one of their better hands, the blood of her mother still dripping from it and pointed it at her. Rachel was horrified and tried to back away… but felt arms wrap around her, holding her in place, forcing her to watch the display of her parent's desecrated corpses slicing into one another… all the while blaming her for what they were doing._

" _It's alright… remember… You wanted to see your parents again, even though you tried desperately to forget your crimes," the voice of Doctor Danny whispered into her ear, freezing her in fear. Eric reappeared next to the monstrosity that was once her parents with that mocking smirk._

" _Such a selfish girl you are," Eric laughed. "Dragging others down and ruining lives to make yours better."_

" _Tha-That's not…"_

" _It's like I said once before, you're soul is unfit for judgement. It's reflected beautifully in your peepers after all," Danny responded, cutting her off and sending her heart pounding in fear. She started to squirm and struggle to get away… only for the hold to disappear and for the others to vanish._

 _Struggling to catch her breath from the fear she had, she took notice that her surroundings were much different now. She was in a large alleyway now, flashing lights of police cars were seen outside of it, a police line was blocking the opening and… there was a body lying face down on the ground. One arm was far out in front of it, pointing in her direction as if they had been reaching for someone or something in that direction, blood was pooled around his head and… what appeared to be a scythe was being held in the other hand._

 _Her heart practically stopped… when she saw that the hand was bandaged up in once clean white wraps… now stained with blood. Rachel's mind barely able to process anything as her body hesitantly moved towards the body, every step she took had her entire form shaking, from the chilling rain that fell but also from an overwhelming sense of disbelief that she had no understanding of. Her vision began to blur from the tears entering her eyes._

 _Her legs gave out on her once she reached the dead person. She noticed then that… her outfit was different… and her hair was much longer as it fell in front of her face… just like when she was younger before she started to cut it short after her fifteenth birthday Her blurred vision remaining on the body right in front of her. Her hands wrapped around the bandaged one as she began to sob._

 _In the back of her mind she had no idea what was going on… why she was crying over this unknown person. But what she did know was that… if she was reacting like this, this person must have meant a lot to her._

" _You see… you even destroyed the one you cared most about… All because of your promise to him," the voice of Danny broke her from these thoughts. She was still crying and in the same area… but now she was in her clothes from earlier in the day and her hair was back to being short. She felt her hands still holding the bandaged one in a gentle embrace. A hand roughly grabbed her face and made her look at them… it was Eric once again._

" _How long until you end up getting the others in the same situation? I bet that either Barry or Katie will be the first to go!" Eric laughed… before something slashed through him, turning his expression from sinister to surprise._

" _ **Why don't you just shut the fuck up already!"**_

 _Rachel's eyes widened as Eric vanished after the blade slashed through him… and the fact that the body was now sitting up and staring at her, alive and well. She still couldn't quite make out his face but she could tell he looked annoyed… especially since the hand she was once holding pulled out and slapped her upside the head. Her now free hands went up to rub the slapped area… it wasn't that painful but it still hurt._

" _ **And you need to stop blaming yourself for all this shit!"**_

" _..." she stared up at him in confusion… why… why wasn't he blaming her for anything? The others she's seen that could speak in this nightmare blamed her… why… why wasn't he?_

" _... Why?"_

" _ **What did you get stupid over the years? My death wasn't your god damned fault and neither was that… whoever the fuck that bastard was… I dunno did you kill that little shit?"**_

" _... No…" Rachel muttered, sniffling a little as tears kept flowing. She couldn't remember who this guy was… and she was regretting it._

 _ **Why can't I remember him?**_

 _There was a moment of uncomfortable silence before she felt a hand on her head and heard an irritated sigh from the guy._

" _ **Seriously quit blaming yourself. It's almost annoying as you apologizing all the time. Just stand up and fucking move your ass along."**_

 _Rachel looked back up to the man, right to where his eyes would be and in almost an instant the shadows she saw that covered his features began to vanish, showing a young man with bandages wrapped around his face, black hair poking out from behind the hood and a little in his face and a pair of mismatched eyes… the left one being a bright yellow while the right was a solid black. He sent her a grin, as if he could tell she was able to see him clearly now._

" _ **Promise me that…**_ _You will promise me that… won't you Ray?" The distortion she had heard in his voice was gone… and when she heard it the tears practically started a new as she reached a hand up to touch his face… one that had a name come to her immediately._

"Zack…" as soon as the name left her lips she realized that she was awake, her face was still wet with tears… And Barry was sitting on the couch across from her, staring at her with a mixed look of confused and concerned.

"... Whoever this Zack person is… if he's making you cry I'm gonna kick his ass," Barry stated after recovering from the confusion part. Rachel just blinked at his response, not entirely sure how to take it… after all she just woke up and wasn't one hundred percent awake quite yet… but one thing was certain to her.

 _What… happened to Zack? Did… he actually die? If he did… how did he? And… why did I forget about him?_

….

Earlier that same day in a city alley, the few people who passed by it could see things being thrown around… and large dents appearing in some of the trash cans as if something hit them with a lot of force. When everything seemed to be broken or thrown around the phenomena would change locations to a different alleyway.

Though if you were lucky… depends if you use the term loosely or not, one would actually see someone actually causing this destruction in a fit of anger. The sound of rattling chains was not helping him out in anyway shape or form… it only served as fuel to his growing anger. However after trashing this last alley the man, Zack, slumped against one of the walls, still agitated but a little calmer now.

 _Fucking piece of shit… fucking chains…_ he thought with a scowl. Bandages on his face eternally having blood going down and staining the once white tape. His brown sweatshirt's hood was up and had splatters of blood that was both his own… and some other unfortunate people's, the red pants he wore seemed to be free of stains along with the black boots he wore.

 _First I'm out trying to find Ray again… BUT THESE PIECE OF SHIT CHAINS KEEP ME LOCKED IN NOTHING BUT ALLEYS ALL THE FUCKING TIME! Making it fucking more difficult than it already is! Then when I do find her by sheer dumb luck, THIS ASSHOLE IS TRYING TO FUCKING KILL HER! IF ANYONE'S GOING TO KILL RAY IT'S GONNA BE ME! Then after I take care of the shit stain and make sure he's dead, I try to talk to Ray again after… how long? Fuck it I dunno… BUT THESE PIECES OF SHIT PULL ME TO A DIFFERENT ALLEY AWAY FROM HER!_

He punched the wall as his anger returned for a moment before something… new caught his attention. The sound of something… breaking. Confused on if he broke the wall or not Zack glanced down at his hand only to see it wasn't the wall… it was the chain.

The damn things that had been on his wrists since he woke up after losing Ray a second time since escaping the hellhole… he had tried breaking them since day one and found quickly no matter what he tried they wouldn't break. They kept him tied to the alleys and anytime he tried leaving them they always pulled him back violently… and now they were breaking.

A smile started for form on his face as laughter started to bubble up as they finally broke off… and vanished as if they never existed in the first place. He laughed hard and loud enough that some people passing the alley got very scared and hurried off as they heard the insane sounding laughter. After finally calming down from his laughing fit, Zack noticed that the other chain was also gone, then turned his attention to the opening of the alley.

Glancing down at his now freed wrists and the opening again he took a few hesitant steps to the opening, not entirely sure if this was a trick or not. Standing at the opening now he stuck his arm out and didn't see any chains reappearing… nor did he feel anything trying to pull him back into the god forsaken alleys again. He nearly started laughing again when he realized… he was truly free now.

Now he had one thing on his mind… Find Ray.

With that he stepped out of the alley and began his search anew.

….

Rachel managed to get Barry to calm down… or rather stay and not go off to try and fight someone who was more likely than not dead. They were now on the main level grabbing some brunch, seeing at they woke up at 10:23… or at least Rachel did, and Rachel was hoping to avoid having to talk to Barry's parents. She had nothing against them really… it's just his parents almost seem desperate for their son to get a girlfriend… or at least have some form of a solid plan for his future. She really just doesn't want to get roped into it.

Rachel went simple with her brunch, grabbing a bowl of cereal out of a box that was thankfully not chewed up. Barry made sure to feed his puppy before himself… with some wet dog food and a few dog treats in his bowl. Soon after Barry grabbed a frying pan and some non stick spray.

"I'm willing to make scrambled eggs and bacon if you want any," Barry grinned, but Rachel politely declined. The pink haired boy shrugged and got to work cooking his own meal, while she enjoyed her Lucky Charms.

"... You could get a job in a restaurant," Rachel brought up as she watched him crack a few eggs into the pan on the heated stove top. Barry flinched at the comment before addressing his friend for a moment.

"... What?"

"... You're not that bad at cooking… plus you seem to enjoy it… so you could apply at a restaurant if you still don't have a job."

"Um… I don't know… You know me I might get annoyed at someone and start a fight... you know…" Barry responded, as he turned his attention back to scrambling the eggs. Rachel looked down at her own food in thought for a moment before she got another idea.

"... The bakery I work at is still hiring… I could try to help with your impulse control while you work there."

Barry paused for a moment before turning his attention back to the blond.

"... You think that would work?"

"... Well it's either that… or the Grocery store Katie works in… After all Nick doesn't have a job yet…. Besides… it'll be a good way to get your parents off your back."

"Alright point taken… I'll think about it."

Rachel smiled a little as she went back to her cereal. By the time she finished Barry finished cooking his own food and set up his plate. As he was about to take the first bite he realized something rather quickly.

"OH! I almost forgot… Katie's coming by in like," Barry paused to check the time before continuing. "Half an hour."

"... Oh," Rachel said with wide eyes. She didn't think Katie would be free so soon… or would have thought to come to Barry's home first. "... Does she know I'm here?"

"I kinda told her… you know her she would kick **my** ass if I didn't tell her that her best friend was over," Barry laughed as he recalled the first time he actually met Katie, back in his final year of Middle School. Mostly how she punched him to the ground, all because Rachel accidently bumped into him and he was about to beat her up but stopped when he saw her eyes… only to have Katie rush in and deliver a surprisingly strong right hook, and when he looked up at her how he thought she looked like an angel.

"... Then you'd try to flirt with her again if she did."

Barry nearly spat his food out at that from a held back laugh. He instead coughed a bit after forcing himself to swallow before speaking.

"You...remember that... huh?" He coughed and hit his own chest a little. Rachel glanced away from him as he calmed himself from his coughing fit. She was about to answer when the doorbell rang. Barry was about to get up to answer the door, but the blond beat him to it as she stood up to answer the door.

The minute the door opened, it was revealed that Katie was standing there, her tired looking hazel eyes widened at seeing the blond was the one who opened the door. Rachel was about to say something to her but was cut off by her friend pulling her into a hug.

"… I'm sorry…" the brunette muttered as she hugged her friend.

"... For… what?" Rachel asked, wincing a little from the pain in her ribs but was relieved of that when the brunette let her go.

"... For… For not telling you about Eric… and how big of a dick he actually was…" Katie answered, looking down at her feet in shame. "If… if I had then maybe…"

"Okay I know we ask Nick this all the time… but did you get any sleep last night?" Barry's voice caught the two girls by surprise. He stood a comfortable distance from Rachel and had a concerned look when he saw how tired Katie was.

"I… I only got two hours…" Guilt clouded those tired eyes as she spoke, Barry and Rachel both glanced at each other before the pink haired boy went over to Katie and put a supportive hand on her shoulder.

"Look… What happened to Eric wasn't your fault alright? It's… It's like those crime shows Nick watches ya know. Abuse is just… just hard to talk about… I think…" Barry tried to help, but ended up muttering the words at the end… he had no real idea what it was like. Rachel's eyes got clouded as memories of her childhood came back…

"... You just didn't want it to happen again… If you spoke out… you were afraid it would only get worse…"

Katie and Barry both froze and stared at Rachel. Barry gently placed a hand on her shoulder, not knowing if she was injured there or not, and Katie just hugged her… albeit more gently than before. She had told both of them about her parents… they both just felt bad for bringing back those memories.

After a while they all calmed down, Barry finished his food… or what he could since he nearly lost his appetite from guilt, and the trio retreated back to the basement and watched a comedy to try and lighten the mood. Both girls were a little surprised that Barry's parents hadn't come to check on them till he reassured them that his Dad was on a business trip and his mom had to work early today.

After the movie and some light hearted conversations, Katie going off on some anime about aliens she watched, Barry joining in and asking what episode she was on, Rachel not being to sure what they were talking about but was actually interested from how it was described. They nearly got the anime up to watch before Katie stopped them.

"We should get back to our apartment… I mean classes start up again tomorrow for us and I need to drop my car off at Mom's."

Barry offered to drive them back, which they accepted after Katie followed through with dropping the car off and grabbing her own stuff. When they got there before she got out of the car Katie stopped and turned back to Barry… and gave him a quick kiss on the lips, surprising both the boy and Rachel.

"Thanks Barry," the brunette said after the kiss then got out of the car. Leaving behind a stunned Barry and a surprised Rachel to follow after her… leaving the boy alone in the car questioning if that was real or not.

* * *

 **Fun Fact 5:** I always find myself having a lot of fun writing dream sequences or flashbacks like in this chapter, I honestly don't know why... Oh well, at least I'm able to give it my all.


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter 6:**_

Inside the apartment both girls dropped their stuff off in their respective rooms before sitting in the living room, with Katie pulling up the anime she was talking about for both of them to watch. Rachel was mostly silent through the episodes, giving a few comments on them here and there… before falling silent all together as confusion racked her brain.

"Hey… what's wrong?" Katie finally asked, looking over to the blond.

"... Why… did you kiss Barry? I thought… didn't you say once before… that you only thought of him as a friend?"

Katie was silent after that question. She glanced between the TV and her friend for a bit before sighing.

"... I had a nightmare about the New Year's Incident last night… with that creepy kid… breaking into Barry's cabin and how the kid… the kid stabbed Barry…"

Rachel remembered that… she couldn't remember everything that happened on that day… but she did remember how she, Barry, Katie and Nick all went up to Barry's cabin to celebrate the New Year… only for it to go downhill from there.

They had arrived on New Year's Eve… a day before Barry's parents would have been coming up as they had their own New Years party going on. They had been having fun and goofing off… when this creepy local kid popped up in the window while it was night time. He had a knife and at first seemed like he was trying to scare them… it worked so the kid backed off. They were all kinda scared but had picked up quickly what the kid was just trying to do, and choose to ignore him instead… after all the cabin had a silent alarm system set up in it and there were four people there.

Rachel never knew what changed in the kid's mind… but a while later Barry's phone got a notification that the alarm had been tripped and barely a second after that his parents called to make sure they were alright. Thankfully they did tell them about the creepy kid and the parents let the police know to head over. After the call Barry almost left the room to see if he could find where the kid was but everyone stopped him and convinced him to just wait… safety in numbers after all….

It turned out the kid had more than a knife with him as he also had a gun. Katie tried to talk the guy down… after all he was clearly just a kid… and he was shaking as he held the weapons. She had been hit in the face and told to shut up, in response Barry tried to stop him… but was hit in the gut with the knife… that's where it got a little fuzzy for Rachel… but she remembered when she did come back to awareness she was standing over the kid with a fire poker in her hands like she had just used it as a blunt weapon… and her hands were shaking hard and her breathing was erratic.

"... What…. Exactly happened in your nightmare?" Rachel asked hesitantly after the memories were brought up. Katie looked away for a moment before answering.

"It… wasn't all that different except… Barry hadn't been lucky that he was stabbed in a non vital area…" Katie explained, her tired eyes getting an almost haunted look. Rachel hesitantly placed a hand on the brunette's shoulder in comfort.

Rachel knows that she's not that good at comforting others… but she's seen the others doing this often and it seems to work. Well… for the most part.

Katie closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before pulling up a forced smile and looking back to Rachel.

"So, enough about me… What do you think of the show so far huh? It's really good right?"

Rachel didn't say anything… this was so like Katie… trying to change the topic when she doesn't know what else to say… or didn't want to talk about it. Then again… it was probably better than her own response to usually clam up and say nothing at all.

"... the bugs going into the people's backs… is kind of disturbing…" the blond finally spoke, after a while of silence between the two… it nearly made Katie uncomfortable with how long she took to answer but smiled when Rachel finally did.

"Heh, yeah it really is… but you have to admit little Geko is freaking adorable."

"... I think Panju is a little more interesting…"

Katie snickered a little, causing a confused look to cross Rachel's face.

"I'm surprised you like the stabby little guy! From what I've been able to tell from fanfictions the little guy is a fan favorite. I was expecting you to be more of an Oranju fan is all," Katie laughed, causing the blond to glance away feeling a little embarrassed.

"... Panju has better dialogue… and Oranju is a little to mellow for the show… in… in my opinion at least."

"Here, here," Katie chuckled a little before turning the show back on for them to watch. Both of them having a little bit of a commentary going on through the episodes as they went. They only stopped once it was eight o'clock and Katie asked if Rachel was hungry at all.

"... what do you want?" The blond asked, her friend seemed to freeze in that moment with a 'Shit!' expression on her face.

"Uh… Well what do you want?"

"... you asked…"

"..."

"..."

"We really fucking suck at dinner plans," Katie groaned, flopping back into her seat with her hands over her face. Silence fell over the two for a bit before Rachel, surprisingly, spoke up first.

"What about pizza? Isn't… that usually our default… when we have nothing planned?"

"Yeah well our usual Pizza place closed down and Domino's is spendy after a while…"

"... I got paid this week…"

"... Well shit, we're getting Pizza then I guess. You wanna do online ordering or phone calling?"

"..."

"Oh right… TO THE INTERNET WE GO!"

"... Are we going to pass the internet cat section?" Rachel asked with a small smile, knowing her friend was getting into one of her joking moods.

"And the music section while we're at it!" Katie declared and hurried off to her own room to grab her laptop. It was after all… the only computer that was even in the apartment for the two. When Katie came back with the laptop she was already getting the website up. Sitting down beside Rachel the two started putting what they wanted on their order and finally choose their method of payment.

Now all they had to do was wait… and watch some more shows till then.

….

Nick was annoyed. He lost his computer rights and his parents were practically pushing the sleeping pills on him now since he snuck out late at night. A typical grounding for him by this point, but it was still annoying. He still had his phone access at least so he was able to do a bit of research but it was harder with the touch screen…. And now he was getting a call from Barry ruining his research.

"What do you want Barry?"

" _Nick, what is love?"_

"Oh my God are you serious right now?"

" _I am Nick! I don't know what to think anymore! First I think Katie just likes me as a friend, then she comes up and kisses me and now… Fuck man I have no idea what I'm feeling!"_

"... Then why are you asking ME this? I have no experience with girls besides Rachel and Katie…"

" _You're the smart guy!"_

"Oh my god… This is like the time you 'Turned Geology into Chemistry' back in Middle School isn't it? Look it probably didn't even mean anything."

" _No see,_ _ **she**_ _kissed_ _ **me**_ _on the lips Nick! ON THE LIPS!"_

"Well then why don't you fucking ask her out instead of calling me? In case you didn't realize it, but I'm grounded Barry."

" _... Alright I'll ask her out when she's done with classes tomorrow! Thanks Nick!"_

"Ah wait don't- And he hung up… Ugh why am I friends with that idiot again?"

Nick was getting a headache. First his own personal research project was hampered with losing his laptop privileges until he had to go back to school, then he got stuck having to use his phone… which doesn't make it easier on him as he has to zoom in on everything, then his parents expect him to take his sleeping pills at exactly ten o'clock and don't leave him alone till he does… and now he has to deal with Barry getting his first crush back.

"What's next? The dead coming back?" Nick groaned and flopped back onto his bed. He pulled off his reading glasses and held his head in his hands. He just wanted his laptop back… he needed to find answers after all.

….

The next day came and Rachel was feeling a little better. The pain was dulled more now, her hand was still bandaged but thankfully not that bad anymore. Katie asked if she was sure she wanted to go to class today… but Rachel refused to stay at home alone, and also she herself was concerned for Katie who still seemed tired.

As they went to the college some of the students stopped to stare at Rachel, most out of concern from the bruises while others were confused. One of them, a young female with dark blonde, pixie cut hair, came running over with a look of worry on her face and a notepad and pen in one hand. The girl quickly scribbled some words on it before showing it to Rachel.

 **You okay? What happened?**

"... I'm fine Emily…"

Emily glanced down from the bruise on Rachel's face to her bandaged hand. Rachel was glad she had decided to wear a scarf to cover the bruises on her neck when Eric tried to strangle her. Emily took her pen and notepad and began writing more on it before letting Rachel read it.

 **Don't believe you… Did you get mugged? Did something worse happen?**

Rachel was silent, but Katie stepped in.

"It's… more of a private talk topic Em… let's wait till after class alright?"

Emily looked like she really wanted to know as she opened her mouth for a second before stopping herself, looking away and sighing. With an upset look the blond wrote down an "Okay" before following through with the rest of her day with the other two.

After the first day of the new quarter finished Emily gently tugged on Rachel's sweater to get her attention so she could read what she wrote.

 **If you're ready. What happened?**

Rachel read it but kept quiet… it was already hard enough telling her best friends what happened… but telling someone she wasn't one hundred percent comfortable with was much, much harder. Katie almost seemed like she was going to tell for her… but clammed up… she didn't really know what to say either. Their silence seemed to make Emily all the more worried and anxious.

"... it was a mugging…" Rachel finally said. "... I refused to let go of my bag… they beat me up… they left my bag behind... after taking the money…"

Katie bit her tongue from saying anything to blow the lie. But could tell from how Rachel couldn't make eye contact with Emily that she felt bad for lying. It was also hard for her to even talk about it… and it didn't exactly happen to her.

Emily seemed to buy it though… After all it was normal for someone to have a hard time talking about getting beaten, let alone mugged. The other blond then scribbled some more words as she held a concerned look.

 **What hurts? So I don't accidently cause you pain when getting your attention.**

"... my ribs… hand… and cheek."

Emily nodded, taking out a notebook and writing that down, most likely as a reminder.

"... On that note, how are you doing Em?" Katie asked as Emily finished. She paused for a moment before pulling her notepad up and writing on that again.

 **Doc's say the worst is over. Not allowed to speak for a while though. Gotta recover from surgery.**

"That's great! Hey… We should totally get ice cream to celebrate."

 **I got another class in 30. Tomorrow though?**

"You got it Em! You in Rachel?"

"... Sure."

"Fuck yeah!"

Katie was in a much better mood with that plan on her mind. Rachel was just glad she been able to keep her memories for the moment…. Or rather remember the past three days for once… and she hasn't even taken her medication once since then.

… _Why is that? ... Why… have the doctors been giving them to me if all they do is get rid of my memories?_

….

On their way back to the apartment, Katie was so confused on why she got a call from Barry. Rachel could only pick up one half of the conversation but it seemed like even Katie was kinda confused.

"Uh… yeah I'm free… Wait a date? Whoa slow down there buddy… Date?"

"... Maybe it's because you kissed him…" Rachel offered at the repeated word, surprising Katie a little but she ended up face palming herself.

"Oh geez… Barry… I…" Katie paused and glanced over to Rachel, who was curious on why she suddenly had her friends attention on her… before Katie looked away with a thoughtful look before sighing. "Sure, how about Friday for dinner?"

Rachel was surprised at this answer. She was honestly expecting Katie to say she was sorry and she just wanted to be friends… like almost every other time someone asked her out.

"Yeah really… I'm willing to give it a shot. See ya Friday." Katie hung up at the end and turned to address the surprised Rachel. "... What?"

"... You said yes to a date…"

"Well… Might as well give it a shot you know. Besides unlike Eric, Barry is much nicer about rejection… I mean he's dealt with me saying no multiple times before when we were in Middle School."

"..."

"Besides… I'm not really sure… you know what never mind. It's not that important."

"... Okay…" Rachel responded, she wasn't going to push her friend on something she didn't want to talk about.

"Come on, I gotta get ready for work. I don't know about your work schedule but you should probably get ready as well." Katie grinned as she dragged Rachel back home. The blond herself smiled a little, the familiar words about her smile coming to mind once more as she did. Soon after instead of getting the pang of sadness… she thought she saw a familiar hooded figure on the opposite side of the street.

 _Zack?_ She thought, turning her head entirely with wide eyes… only to see that she was mistaken and that it was just someone in a similar colored hood. She felt disappointment raising up and replacing that small sense of hope she had.

 _I… still don't remember much about Zack… but… do I… really want to see him again?_ Even as she questioned that… she found herself glancing back at the hooded person in hopes that she had been wrong in thinking it was someone else… but the person was already gone, along with that small amount of hope she didn't know she had left.

….

Nick was home alone now… and he snuck his laptop back. His dad wouldn't be home for another four hours, his mom and sister were out shopping and knowing them it will be another two and a half hours till they get home… three and a half if they decided to get their hair done.

 _Dad should have thought harder on where to hide it. The sock drawer is literally the first place I looked this time._ Nick thought with a smirk as he logged on and brought up the internet to begin his search anew.

Instead of typing in the Back Alley Murderer…. This time he began a new search topic.

 **Rachel Gardner.**

There were a few different results… but he found the ones he wanted. From the time she had at the hospital… and an apparent time where a few months after she had been kidnapped from said hospital. This… this was new to him. Rachel was kidnapped a second time? Huh, the more you know.

Reading through he found that the main suspect was… Isaac Foster… the Back Alley Murderer… This was the first time Nick was able to get the guys name… and see a picture of him. Well… a kinda picture as it seemed really blurry as if the guy couldn't hold still at all. This was seriously the best picture they could get of the guy?

 _Must have had ADHD or something… or just a major problem with sitting still… is his skin white or something? For sure his hair's black… but seriously I'm having a hard time making out these details!_ Nick fumed as he studied the image for a bit. He decided to save the image and send it to his phone so he could try and pick out any characteristics later. After all he was pressed for time.

 _ **Acquired Blurred Picture.**_

Oh wait… they also had a police sketch of the guy. Might as well get that one as well. After all it had better details in it then the blurred one.

 _ **Acquired Sketched Picture.**_

After getting the pictures he continued reading the article, practically absorbing the information in it.

 _She was kidnapped from her room… her door was blocked from the inside well before the sound of the window breaking happened. All that was found in the room after they forced the door open was the chipped knife Rachel had brought in claiming to be hers. From the sound of it… she didn't put up much of a fight to get away from the guy… rather she seemed to help him by stalling the orderlies and doctors with the blocked door._

He came to the end of the article and quickly switched tabs to the second article he found. He soon closed out of it as it didn't provide any new information, he did the same with the third one but the fourth one… that one was about five months after the last one… and from the date on it about two months before she first went to their Middle School.

 _She and the killer were found trying to cut through an Alleyway to get away from pursuing cops… Isaac was killed on sight and Rachel was in clear distress after that… There's not much else on what happened to her after that… except she was kept in the hospital for a while and never seemed to be found after that._

He tried to find any more articles for information… but none seemed to get past that point. He then tried looking up Isaac Foster… but found even **less** on him then there was on Rachel. That actually pissed him off… because it was almost like **this guy didn't exist** with how little information there was.

"Who the hell were you Isaac Foster?"

"Better question is what are you doing with your laptop back young man?" The voice of his mother startled him… and made him glance from both his mother and the time at least twice before speaking.

"... You're home early…"

"You're avoiding the question Nicolas Sherman West."

Ah, the classic full name… Nick's mother truly was mad at him if this was going on.

"... You guys should know I'm always going to find a way to the internet. Though you really need to think of better hiding places. I've practically mapped out every hiding spot by now."

His mom was angered at that moment… but was cut off from a coming rant when her oldest child walked into the room… and took the laptop from her younger sibling.

"What the hell Joan?!"

"Isn't it obvious? You're not supposed to have this idiot," she responded while closing out of his tab and shutting the computer down. "So I'm gonna be the one hiding it now."

"Right like there's any place you can hide it."

"There is one place that if you even think of touching you're dead meat."

Nick pondered what she said for a moment… before it rammed into him like a bullet train and his expression turned to one of horror.

"You wouldn't…"

"Watch me."

"Besides you're not supposed to have it now anyways," his mother supplied as the two women left the room with the confiscated item in tow. Nick knew where it was going to be placed now… but he really didn't want to try grabbing it now... Nor did he think he ever wanted to touch it again when he did get it back.

 _Now how am I gonna finish my research?_ Nick thought to himself before hitting his head lightly onto his desk.

….

The Reverend was settling down in his home for the night. Internally hoping that tonight would be like the other… no one getting the bright idea to sneak into his Church just to lay eyes on the resident ghosts. It was hard enough to get them to remain calm sometimes… having so many people in one setting in the middle of the night seemed to set them on edge or rather…

 _How interesting of you to show up once again after all these years Rachel Gardner. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Daniel would be much more excited at your presence… but Edward on the other hand surprises me a little more. I thought that he got over that crush four years ago now,_ the priest thought to himself as he opened the top to a snake terrarium and dropped in the proper amount of food to the two white serpents inside. The two snakes eating their food eagerly as their owner wheeled towards the small study of his home.

In the room the auburn haired boy sat at the table scribbling something into a leather bound book with some schematics and placement ideas for a new grave underneath it. He still wore the closed up jacket from the other day but it seemed as if… blood was starting to appear in a long vertical line on the chest. He seemed so engrossed in his writing that he didn't even turn or even say a small greeting to the reverend, nor seem to notice the growing blood stain he produced. "Black" could only guess what had the kid so wrapped up in his own writing.

"Thinking about trying to find Rachel once again?" That caused Eddie to jump, a light blush on his face at being caught.

"NO!"

A quirked brow from the Reverend made the boy fidget a bit.

"... maybe…"

The priest sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. It was bad enough he had to find ways to keep Danny from going after the girl… and keep Cathy from purging the sinners that came to the confessionals. He really didn't want to add more work to his already hectic life by finding ways to keep Eddie from sneaking away. He is just one man in a wheelchair after all.

"You know very well that you shouldn't."

Eddie was silent at that. He knew very well he shouldn't… but he was just curious. After all… she seemed different after all these years… and he wasn't dumb enough to not notice the pain she was in or the bruises.

The reverend had sighed at the silence and went over to the kid's side to look at the schematics and placement chart. They were due to hold another funeral within the coming week after all and it was best to have a solid plan for the grieving family.

"... The placement around space H 9 seems more appropriate," the elder offered, getting straight into official business and to remove the bitter look on the child's exposed face. Eddie perked up at that and held up the placement chart he made.

"Personally that would have been my second choice, J 3 was more my first one. After all it's a newer space and from the information on this person they had a rather extensive family…. Better location to move around and place the kind of grave stone they wanted."

The two discussed the arrangements some more before coming to an agreement and the Reverend to decide to turn in for the night.

"... Oh and Edward."

"Hm?"

"You're ruining another lost coat. Make sure to properly clean it when you have the time and put it back in the lost and found."

Eddie flinched before glancing down and glaring at the invasive red that made its way onto the… borrowed coat like it was the most hateful thing in the world. He took the coat off and underneath was his normal outfit… or rather the one he died in… right down to the large deep slash in his chest that stained the front of his white shirt red and even got a little on the overalls.

He hated it more then anything… except maybe the one who caused the death wound.

 _If I ever see Zack again… I'll make him regret what he did to me._

….

A loud sneeze startled the few people who heard it. The one who caused it was so much more confused though.

 _I'm fucking dead how the hell can I catch a cold?!_ Zack thought with confusion clear on his bandaged face. Then again… many things about this afterlife didn't make sense to the killer.

"Movies made more sense then this bull shit…" he grumbled to himself outloud. He really didn't want to deal with anymore bullshit… after all he spent almost an entire two days trying to find Rachel. It was easier said than done really.

"Have a good night Derek!"

Perking up at the voice, Zack turned his head and felt his eyes widen as he saw the person he was looking for stepping out of a closing down Bakery across the street. Luck was finally on his side it appears.

He noticed rather quickly a bag of the baked goods in her arms… and the small smile on her face. It was just like how he remembered it. It sucked… but it looked really good on her. He watched as she started on her trek… to where? Hell if he knew… but he was determined to catch up to her by this point. He's waited too damn long to find her and like hell he was going to let her get away that easily.

He was about to run across the road only to quickly pull himself back as a car raced by.

"FUCKER! CAN'T YOU SEE I'M…." Zack shouted only to pause then slap a hand over his face. "I'm fucking dead duh… I'm a dumbass…"

With that in mind he dashed across the street, not caring about cars this time and was quickly catching up to the blond… who seemed to have heard his oncoming footsteps and paused for a moment.

"RAY!"

His excited shout caused her to actually stop moving altogether and for her to slowly turn around with wide blue eyes.

"Zack?"

* * *

 **Fun Fact 6:** Barry and Katie are the only romantic end goal in this entire story in all honesty and even then it's mostly going to be in the background. Those two became mine and my friend's OTP when we were making plans for this story... though an unexpected one popped up and will be seen a little more in the future, that one isn't much of an end goal like Katie and Barry though.


End file.
